


Ewe Had Me At Hello

by fortunehasgivenup



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Masturbation, Misunderstandings, Oral Sex, Yarn store AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 00:29:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29251500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortunehasgivenup/pseuds/fortunehasgivenup
Summary: When Beth goes in for an interview at All Tangled Up In Ewe, she's expecting it to just be a job. But the owner, Mick, is nothing like she expected and his shadowy co-owner slash partner Rio is even more of a mystery - from his easy smile to his too good to be true scones. Pretty quickly, it's more than just a job.Is Rio boyfriend material or will whatever is going on behind the scenes be enough to unravel Beth's chances at happiness?
Relationships: Beth Boland/Rio
Comments: 39
Kudos: 197





	Ewe Had Me At Hello

**Author's Note:**

> BEHOLD. YARN STORE AU.
> 
> **Warning:** There is a part when Beth is talking to Rio about not being in the mood and he asks her if Dean abused her. She says no, but thinks about the fact that Dean used to try to guilt her into having sex.

Beth steps into All Tangled Up in Ewe and looks around. 

“We aren’t open yet!” someone calls from somewhere over on the right wall, behind a desk.

Beth walks in that direction. “Actually, I’m here for an interview,” she says. “I’m Beth.”

The man that pops up from the counter is nothing like Beth expects. They’d only communicated by e-mail and nothing about them had suggested to her that Mick looked like a Hell’s Angel. 

Still, with four kids, Beth has learned to just go with things, so she keeps walking and smiles at him.

“Mick?”

“That’s me,” he responds, stepping out from behind the counter and extending a hand for her to shake. He points to the counter with the espresso machine and display case at the front of the store. “Coffee?”

Beth laughs. “What, you don’t want me to make it to prove to you that I know how to?”

Mick smiles. “In that case, I’ll take an oat milk latte. You familiar with this particular machine?” He pats the top of it.

“Not this exact one,” Beth says, going to the sink and washing her hands thoroughly first. “But it looks like it’s pretty intuitive. Have you calibrated the grinder?”

He nods. “Should be 27 seconds for a double shot.”

Beth grins, wipes the inside of the portafilter and then sets it up at the grinder. It’s loud, so she waits until it’s done to keep talking.

“I have to say,” she tells him, “I got pretty excited when I saw the sign saying that the business coming in was a knit café.” She grabs a mug from the top of the machine and sets it up under the group head.

Mick leans against the counter. “I’m more on the knitting side of things,” he explains. “My partner’s the baker and coffee nut.”

“So I should be trying to impress them with my coffee making skills then?” Beth takes a second to read the buttons on the machine before touching one. “This one?”

Mick nods. “He’s not actually going to be around a lot. He’s got some other businesses, but insisted that a yarn shop alone couldn’t make it.” He rolls his eyes.

Beth laughs as she takes oat milk from the fridge under the counter and grabs a jug. “I think he underestimates how much knitters are willing to spend.”

“That’s what I said!” Mick throws up his hands. “But,” he lowers them again, “I’m not gonna scoff at an additional revenue source. My hope is that an evening or two a month, we can set up Stitch and Bitch in the space.”

“Oh, that would be great!” Beth agrees. “The library has one, but they’re held in the afternoon.”

Stopping the espresso, Beth turns the steam knob to clear it, then sets it into the oat milk. Again, the noise prevents their conversation from continuing, but she can tell that Mick is watching her carefully as she foams the milk.

Once it’s quiet again, Mick asks, “So you knit?”

“Yup!” Beth replies, knocking the jug on the counter and swirling it to get rid of any big bubbles. “I actually made this sweater.”

Mick whistles. “That must have taken a while.”

Beth nods, carefully pouring the milk. She’s a bit concerned that she’ll flub the pour, but she’s able to make a heart. Pleased with herself, she slides it across the counter towards Mick. She watches as he takes a sip.

“Good,” he tells her. “Make yourself something and then we’ll sit down.”

He watches her clean the jug and portafilter, then make herself a cappuccino and clean it all up again. It takes a few minutes, but Beth feels confident about her abilities in this at least.

Finally, it’s time to actually sit down at one of the little tables across from Mick.

“You haven’t worked in a while,” he starts out going right for the throat.

But Beth prepared for this. Ruby and Annie had helped. “I have four kids,” she says. “The oldest is just thirteen now and my youngest is six. This is the first chance I’ve had to work outside of the house, if I’m being honest.”

“But you’ve got skills with the coffee machine,” he notes.

Beth nods. “My sister works in a café on the other side of town. When she was learning how to use everything, I learned with her. It was fun.”

“And you were good at it,” Mick prompts.

She smiles, pleased with the compliment. She’d gone to the café before opening and after closing for the past week and a half to practice with Annie again. It had been Ruby’s idea that she wear something that she’d made.

“It shows that you know what you’re doing,” Ruby had insisted, pulling the sweater from Beth’s closet.

“Have you done point of sale before?” Mick asks.

Beth has to stop herself from biting her lip. “Maybe not with your exact machine, but we used a few different systems at school events, so I’m pretty good at troubleshooting Square halfway through the bake sale with a lineup of irate parents.”

Mick nods. “Honestly, you’ve got the job, if you want it.”

Beth perks up. “Really? Just like that?”

He lifts a pierced eyebrow. “First person that came in to interview seemed to be under the impression that I couldn’t own a knitting shop. Second one had the coffee experience, but doesn’t know anything about yarn. I hired him and you’ll meet him at some point, but having someone who knows both sides of the business would be ideal. You can move back and forth as needed.”

“I’d like that,” Beth says, unable to control her smile.

“We’ll have you start with day shifts, if that’s cool,” Mick says. “Do you need to do after school pick-ups?”

Beth shook her head. “My ex is covering those.”

If he’s surprised that she’s divorced, he doesn’t show it, just nods.

“I’ll be sure to give you two days off in a row, but it probably won’t fall on the actual weekend, at least not at first,” Mick goes on. “We’re gonna be open seven days a week, but reduced hours on Sunday and Monday.”

“My ex has the kids on weekends, so that works,” Beth said.

He bobs his head. “The goal is to be flexible enough that if things come up, we can move around the schedule.”

They go over some paperwork, details that Mick will need so he can set up direct deposit for her paychecks, things that Beth needs to sign, timelines for set-up and opening. When he shakes Beth’s hand before letting her out, she feels a whole lot better than she had when she got there.

She’s lighter as she walks back to her car and gets in, already tugging her phone out.

“I got the job!” Beth practically shouts into the phone at Ruby once she picks up.

Ruby cheers. “I knew you could do it! You wore the sweater?”

“Yes, I did. He said the fact that I knew both sides of the business was ideal. Oh shoot, I should call Annie and leave her a message to call me on break. You’re both lifesavers.”

“So what you’re saying is that drinks are on you?” Ruby teases. “I’m sure Annie’ll be happy to hear it. Call her, leave a message. We’re still on for coffee tomorrow?” Beth makes a noise to confirm. “Then you can tell us all the details then. Oh, do you still have those little apple cookie cutters? I’ve only got the big one and no way am I sending in cookies that size to Harry’s class.”

“Yup!” Beth can’t stop grinning. “I’ll bring them with me tomorrow.”

The high of getting the job carries her through picking up the kids from school, even through the monthly dinner that they have as a whole family. Dean brings ice cream, even though he didn’t ask her if he should, but she purses her lips and says nothing.

“You need to be doing all the after school pick-ups,” she says once the dishes are away and the kids have scattered. “Just like we agreed on.”

Dean blinks. “But I -“

“I vaguely remember something about you wanting to be involved,” Beth goes on. He’d fought for it. Implied heavily that she was trying to keep him away from the kids or limit their time with him. “I start work next weekend.”

“You got a job?” Dean looks surprised.

Beth just smiles. “Wasn’t that what you said I needed to do when I mentioned that I need to get the gutters looked at?”

“I said that I wasn’t paying for house upkeep if I wasn’t living in it,” Dean says.

“And then told me that I should get a job. So I did. I start next Friday. You can pick the kids up from school and start your weekend right away, rather than them coming home for dinner. I’ll tell them tomorrow.”

Dean scowls. “Bethie, you can’t spring this on me.”

“Spring this on you?” Beth tilts her head to the side. “How is asking you to honour our custody agreement springing this on you? I get that you’re only really interested in spending time with the kids when it’s fun for you, but that’s not what being a parent is and you should know that by now. You’re gonna have to make sacrifices for them, just like I have.”

Whenever she does this, tell him what she’s really thinking, Dean’s always taken aback. If she’d been doing this for their whole marriage, would they even have made it as long as they did? Probably not.

“I’ll say goodbye to the kids,” Dean finally replies. “I’ll pick them up from school Friday.”

“Every day, Dean. What was it you said? You have a flexible schedule?”

With that, he leaves the kitchen and Beth breathes a sigh of relief. Custody had been…contentious. And getting Dean to actually pull his weight according to what they’d agreed upon wasn’t easy. Beth had just wanted to avoid confrontation, so she had let a few things slide. Like school pickups. She was around, so it wasn’t like it was a big deal for her to do them.

And somehow it always ended with her feeling like she’d been taken advantage of.

Dean mutters a “bye” as he walks past her to grab his jacket, but that’s it.

Not for the first time, Beth feels a sense of relief when he leaves. He does love the kids and having a family dinner one night a month, all of them together, is a small price to pay for the kids’ happiness.

——————————————————

The first day that the shop is open, Beth’s there half an hour early.

Mick laughs when he sees her. “Make yourself a coffee,” he says, “and take a walk around, get to know where things are.”

A bit sheepish, Beth makes herself a cappuccino. “You don’t have flavoured syrups or anything?” she asks. She’d noticed the lack of them when she’d come in for her interview, but she’d assumed that it just hadn’t arrived yet.

“R hates ‘em,” Mick says. “Goes on and on about preservatives and high sugar content. How a good coffee doesn’t need anything added.”

Beth presses her lips together in an effort to not immediately criticize R, who must be the partner that Mick had mentioned before.

“You don’t agree?” Mick guesses.

Beth inspects a wall of merino. “It’s not that I disagree,” she hedges, “it’s that other people disagree. There are going to be customers who want the super sweet or flavoured drinks.”

Mick leans on the counter. “Tell you what - keep track of how many people ask about it. If I can show him that they’re something people want, he might be more willing to budge.”

Beth’s thoughts are already racing towards the types of syrups and flavours they should get.

“If he’s worried about ingredients,” she says casually, lifting up a set of knitting needles, “we could always make our own syrups.”

“Yeah?”

She turns her head to Mick and nods. “I make a pretty good caramel sauce, if I do say so myself. And vanilla syrup is easy. Get cocoa powder and that’s at least four additional drinks right there, eight if we do them iced.”

Mick grins. “I like the sound of caramel sauce,” he says. “If we do that, we’ll work out something for the extra hours.”

“Oh, it doesn’t take that long,” Beth rushes to assure him, but he shakes his head.

“I’ve had shitty jobs before,” Mick tells her, turning serious, “and most of ‘em have suffered from a lack of boundaries between work and not work. I’m not doing that here.”

That makes Beth relax just a little bit of tension that she hadn’t realized she was carrying.

“Okay,” Mick says, “so the apron.”

It’s a linen apron that crosses at the back, with pockets to store things. Beth instantly loves it. It’s the same green as the store’s sign outside and to her surprise, Mick has one too.

“We have to match,” he laughs when he sees her blink at him. “Besides, you know people aren’t gonna think I work here.”

He’s right. Once the store opens, they start getting visitors. Most of them are just wanting to check out the newest store on the block, but some are on the hunt for a coffee or a pastry. A few people knit, expressing excitement that there’s an independent yarn store in the area now. Almost all of the knitters gravitate towards Beth, although Mick is more than capable at handling their questions.

“I buy at the craft stores,” an older man admits, “but I don’t like the selection.”

Beth smiles at him as she reaches up to get down a teal wool that he’d expressed interest in.

“My favourite colour,” he says when she hands it to him. He turns the skein over in his hands, weighing the wool. “I have no idea what I’d make with it though,” he admits, “and I got told to stop doing that.”

Beth laughs. “I’ve been making table runners lately.”

“Oh!” He brightens up. “This would look wonderful under Stacey’s vase.” He grins at Beth. “Alright, pull my leg.”

It turns out that his name is Auli and he learned to knit in school when he was a boy. “They used to teach all of us,” he explains, “the boys and girls, how to knit, how to sew little things. How to make some simple meals.”

“I’m trying to convince my kids that knowing how to sew on a button is a valuable life skill,” Beth replies, packing up the wool and some needles for Auli. “You’ll have to bring in some pictures of the runner when it’s done. I love to see finished products.”

There’s a little lull eventually and Beth turns to Mick. “We should think about featuring customer’s projects on the store Instagram,” she proposes.

“Not a bad idea.” Mick’s phone pings, pulling him away for a moment. “Alright, I’ve got to head out for lunch. When I come back, you can take your break. I won’t be far, so if there’s an emergency, just give me a call.”

Beth nods, nervous at the prospect of being left alone.

Not wanting to be idle, she decides that it’s as good a time as any to start stocking some of the coffee cups and stir sticks that they hadn’t had a chance to before opening.

She’s on her second trip when she hears the bell above the door ring and she drops the sleeve of cups back on the shelf and darts out.

“Hi!” Beth comes out of the stockroom. “How can I help you?”

The man at the café counter turns his head to take her in. “Macchiato.”

It’s rude, but Beth just smiles. “For here or to go?”

He considers her. “For here.”

Beth washes and dries her hands before turning to the espresso machine. “Is whole milk okay?”

“Almond,” he says, then turns his attention to his phone.

She starts making his drink, shooting glances at him over the counter. He’s tall, good looking despite the massive tattoo on his throat that makes her want to wrinkle her nose a little.

“So you’re Elizabeth,” he says.

Beth jerks in surprise, nearly spilling milk all over the counter. She looks up at him. “I’m sorry?”

“You must be Elizabeth,” he replies, studying her. “Mick says you think we should do flavoured coffees.” He makes a face.

“Who are you?” she asks.

“Rio.”

Beth frowns, confused, before it clicks. R - Mick’s partner. R must stand for Rio. “Oh, you’re the partner!”

He nods.

“Nice to meet you,” Beth says.

If Mick hadn’t been exactly what Beth was expecting, Rio is just as unexpected.

“And yes,” she goes on, “I think we should do flavoured coffees. People like them.”

He makes a face.

“We can upcharge on them too,” she tells him before she starts to steam the milk.

“They ruin the integrity of the coffee,” Rio says when she turns off the steam wand and starts to tap and swirl the jug.

Beth has to bite back a “Then don’t have them” and instead pours his macchiato, spooning the foam on top at the end. “We should also have little cookies or chocolates to serve with espressos,” she informs him. “If we’re being traditionalists.”

He seems to think it’s funny because he laughs and accepts the cup from her.

“Alright, maybe you two aren’t completely insane,” he says. “Even though I still think it’s wrong. But fuck, what do I know about knitting and the knitting crowd.”

“You don’t know anything about yarn?” Beth says, surprised.

Rio shakes his head. “That’s Mick’s thing. Don’t know shit about knitting other than it takes a long time and supplies are expensive. But people just eat it right up, huh.” It’s said almost like a question, but not quite.

“Well,” she replies, “depends on the person. My sister could not care less about it, but I’ve always liked it. So what’s your involvement?”

He gives her a look. “You a cop?” he drawls, making Beth flush. Before she can stammer out some kind of response, he grins. “Just fucking with you. I’m gonna be baking the stuff that you’ll start stocking in a couple of days, take care of the books, that kind of shit.”

“Do you do wholesale baking?” Beth asks.

“No.”

There’s no way that he can survive on whatever he’ll make from the sales that he’ll do at the shop, even if they sell out every day. “Do you have another store?”

“No.”

“Oh. You’re an accountant?”

“No.”

Beth’s about to ask what he knows about keeping books when she stops herself. It’s none of her business.

“Tell Mick I stopped by,” he says, finishing his coffee, “and that he can have his damn syrups.”

He leaves before Beth can say anything else and she’s promptly blindsided by a mini-rush. It’s an entire knitting circle - well, there’s five people in it - but they run all over the store, exclaiming over everything. Mick comes back soon after they arrive, slipping behind the coffee counter to help out on that end of things.

By the end of the day, Beth feels tired, but satisfied. It’s nice, being out of the house and talking to people. Not just about the yarn either. A young woman had struck up a conversation about what type of yarn to use for baby clothes and they’d wound up talking about what the woman could do for her wife’s morning sickness.

“You’ve got a knack,” Mick says after they lock the doors and start to clean up. “People like you.”

Beth blushes as she sweeps.

“R agrees,” he says, reminding Beth about his partner.

She gasps. “I totally forgot to tell you that he came in! And he said we could do syrups.”

Mick nods. “Yeah, he messaged me. Said you made good coffee, too.”

The simple compliment makes Beth grin.

———————————————

It’s been two weeks of working in the shop before Beth sees Rio again. Every time that she’s the one to open, there’s boxes of fresh pastries. And they are fresh.

At first, she had wondered if maybe they’d be ordering through a wholesaler, but it was small batch baking, a little rustic, but delicious. At the end of the day, she always sent Mick a list of what was left before packaging it up to drop off at a shelter on the way home.

They were sticking to staples - scones, muffins, a few cookies, danishes. They’d all been great when Beth tried them, so she was happy to have a chance to talk to him about them.

“Mick’s out,” she says, “but he left something for you behind the counter.”

Rio nods. “Yeah, he said that. Can I get an almond milk macchiato?”

“For here or to go?”

“For here,” he says.

She starts to gather everything. “The treats are great, by the way. I don’t know if Mick passed along all my compliments.”

He smiles. “He told me that you approved.”

“They’re delicious,” Beth says. “We have regulars that pick up a coffee and a treat partway through the day during their breaks. The scones especially.”

“That’s good.” Rio’s looking around the shop, inspecting everything. He only ever seems to come early in the mornings before anyone else, so he’s probably not used to seeing it with the midday sunlight, with customers in the space.

There’s a couple of people in the café section of the shop - some regulars and two people that Beth hasn’t seen in the store before, who had just dropped about $200 on wool before getting coffees.

One of the customers is Auli, who is working on a delicate shawl from one of Beth’s books. They’d gotten to talking when he had come in a second time and he had mentioned wanting to try out some new patterns, which had led to a little book exchange. Some of his books were in Finnish, so it was a little slow going on her end. She kept having to ask him what certain words meant, although she was building an impressive glossary of Finnish knitting terminology.

“How’s it been?”

Beth almost doesn’t hear him ask the question. “Pardon me?”

“How has the store been?” Rio asks.

“Oh, it’s been great! We’ve got our first Stitch and Bitch night planned for next week and there’s quite a bit of interest,” Beth tells him. “I mean, we’ll see if the interest translates into people, but -“

His lips are twitching like he’s trying not to laugh.

“What’s that look for?”

Rio shakes his head, giving in to a chuckle. “You and Mick are like birds of a feather,” he says. “I swear, you open your mouth to start talking about yarn and it’s like I’m listening to Mick.”

Beth’s cheeks start to heat up.

“It’s good,” he goes on. “I have no fucking idea what any of it means. He’ll be talking about weight and gauge, my mind just goes blank. We don’t know too many people with that interest. This place is good for him.”

The fond tone in Rio’s voice makes Beth soften, if not downright melt a little.

“I’m glad,” she says after she steams the milk. “It’s a great space and even though it hasn’t been very long, I think it’s already become good for lots of us.”

Rio smiles at her as she slides his coffee to him. Rather than sitting down, he leans against the counter and sips his drink while Beth tidies up.

“Mick said you have kids.”

Beth looks over her shoulder after rinsing the steamer jug. “Yeah, four.”

His eyes widen, but he doesn’t comment. “Any of them know how to knit?”

She shrugs. “A little bit, but none of them have gotten particularly into it. Unfortunately.”

“You and your husband must be running around all the time after four kids.” She can hear the question in the statement.

“Ex,” Beth corrects. “My youngest is six and my oldest is twelve, so they’re all in school. We do okay.” She hesitates, then goes on. “It’s why I like working weekends. House is too quiet.”

Rio nods. “I can see that. Mick’s probably worth at least three kids.”

Beth laughs, returning to the counter by Rio. She’s only met him the couple of times and he only ever seems to appear when Mick isn’t around, but he’s handsome. She can’t help but glance down at his hands, making note of his long, elegant fingers. He’d be good at knitting, if he gave it a shot, she thinks. Or maybe crochet would be more his thing.

He downs the last of his coffee and sets it down, sliding it back across to Beth.

“I’ll see you around,” he tells her.

“Bye Rio!” Beth wants to wince at her chipper tone, but he doesn’t say anything about it, just smiles before he leaves.

Watching him walk out, she realizes that the pair who had bought lots of wool have left and she goes to grab their dishes.

“He likes you,” Auli says to Beth when she walks by him.

“Hmm?”

“That man,” Auli stabs his needle in the direction of the door, “who just left. He likes you.”

Beth laughs. “He’s my boss’ partner.”

“Mick?”

“Yup.”

Auli gave her a strange look. “I don’t think so,” he says. “I saw Mick with a different man earlier in the week.”

Beth isn’t sure how to respond to that.

“Cute, blonde,” Auli tells her. “I think that one is free and he likes you.”

Beth shakes her head. “If you say so.”

——————————————

One afternoon, Rio returns to the shop to drop a couple of things off for Mick related to their _other_ business. He steps into the store, rolling his eyes at the tinkle of the bell and frowning when he doesn’t see Mick behind the counter.

“He went out back,” a woman sitting at one of the tables says. “Mick. If that’s who you’re looking for.”

Rio nods. He could go out, but he’s feeling lazy and all he wants is a coffee, so he steps behind the counter and washes his hands.

“I’m going to assume that makes you Rio?”

He looks over at her in surprise, really registering her presence and that of the little boy next to her.

“Yeah,” he replies. “Do I know you?”

“No,” she says. “But I’m friends with Beth.”

“Oh.” He shifts awkwardly, not sure what to say to that. Hi, I like your friend but haven’t figured out how to ask her to go out with me yet?

“She likes working here. Don’t mess that up by being a creep.”

“Yeah!” the little boy chimes in, still colouring furiously with a crayon.

“Sorry, who are you?” Rio asks.

“Ruby. And Beth has been my best friend since we were kids,” the woman - Ruby - says. “So don’t do that man thing where you just kinda hover over her, not picking up on her cues until work becomes intolerable.”

Rio stops making his coffee. “Did she say something about me?” Has he been hovering? He’s been flirting with her, sure, and she gets a little flustered when he does it. But is he making work hell for her? The thought that he might be makes his gut burn with a hint of shame even as Ruby shakes her head.

“No,” she says. “But we’ve had enough jobs over the years between us that we’ve got that concern in the back of our minds. So don’t be a creep.”

He nods slowly.

“So long as we’re clear,” Ruby says.

“Clear,” the little boy parrots with a grin.

“Okay then, Mr. Echo, how about this? It’s time to go home.”

“No!” He pouts, dramatic enough that Rio has to laugh. “I wanna see the man’s bird.”

It takes Rio a second to realize that he’s the man in question and it’s long enough for Beth’s friend to fix him with a disapproving look. Rio can’t fight the twitch of his lips.

“Ask the man nicely,” Ruby says.

The boy climbs down off the chair and comes to the end of the counter. “I’m Harry. Can I see your bird?”

Rio smiles and crouches down. “Nice to meet you, Harry. I’m Rio. Yeah, you can see my bird.” He lifts his chin to extend his neck and Harry steps closer, looking carefully at it.

“Do you put it on every day?”

Laughing, Rio shakes his head. “Just one time. Then it’s on me for the rest of my life.”

Harry’s eyes get wide. “Really?”

“Yup. But your mama said it’s time to go home,” he says gently, “and I think it’s probably best to listen to your mama.”

“Yeah,” Harry agrees. “If I don’t, she does this.” He sighs dramatically and puts his hands on his hips, head tilted back to look at the ceiling.

“Very funny,” Ruby says, holding out Harry’s coat for him to slip his arms into.

“Bye Rio!” Harry tells him once he’s in his jacket and all zipped up. He waves with the hand not currently in his mother’s grasp as she leads him out of the store.

“Bye Harry,” Rio replies. It’s only polite.

——————————————

Mick’s needles move almost faster than the eye can see.

“That’s a gorgeous pattern,” Beth comments when he reaches the end of his row, eyeing the complicated cabling that makes up the hat.

Mick puts a stitch marker in place and smiles. “Thanks. Making them for my partner.”

She can already picture Rio wearing it, pulled down over his ears.

“Nothing quite like making things for someone you love, is there?” Beth says, affixing price stickers to the new shipment of crochet hooks. “You never told me how you got into knitting.”

“No?” He glances up, thoughtful. “My mom usually had a project on the go, but had this habit of not finishing ‘em. So I learned how to do that part. I liked it, so I started looking for tougher patterns, new techniques.”

“How old were you?” Beth asks.

He scratches his beard with the end of a needle. “Nine or so? What about you?”

Beth reaches the last of the hooks and sets it to the side with the others. “We didn’t have a lot of money growing up,” she admits. “I figured out how to sew and knit and darn so that I could fix our clothes, keep them going for longer. Learned how to unwind a sweater, reuse the wool. It made me feel good.”

Mick nods. “It’s a useful skill. You still do mending?”

“With four kids?” Beth laughs. “Yes, I mend. I do it for Annie and Ruby’s kids too.”

When she turns her head to look at Mick, he’s got a thoughtful expression on his face.

“What’s that look for?”

“Just thinking about how it might be good to mention mending and repurposing on our announcements for Stitch and Bitch. Let people know that they can bring stuff they want to fix and learn how to do that.” Mick pulls out a piece of paper and starts to jot things down.

Beth considers it. “A lot of that’s sewing though, extra materials we’d need on hand. We’d need -“

“Fabric, thread, buttons, needles,” Mick says, tapping things on his list.

“Heavy duty scissors,” Beth suggests. “Something that can cut denim without a problem. People are always trying to learn how to hem.”

Mick starts adding more stuff to the list, then stops and raises his head. “Would you be comfortable with me including that? I mean, some of it is stuff I know how to do too, but I’m guessing you’ll be the one who winds up fielding a lot of questions.”

She smiles at Mick. Looking at him, most people wouldn’t assume that he’s thoughtful and caring, certainly not to the degree that he is. Rio’s a lucky man. At that thought, something gets caught in throat, preventing her from answering out loud. 

She nods.

——————————————

Rio isn’t quite able to hide his disappointment when he steps into the store and sees Tyler behind the counter. Tyler’s not bad at making coffee. If anything, his technique is better than Elizabeth’s. But the thing is…he _likes_ Elizabeth.

Mick thinks it’s hilarious.

“She’s got you all wrapped up, huh?” Mick had teased him earlier in the week. “Am I gonna have to chase you away from my employees?”

“Fuck off, man.”

“Almond macchiato?” Tyler asks him. Rio nods. “Mick’s in the back, if you’re looking for him.”

“Nah,” Rio mumbles. “He’ll be out in a minute. I let him know I was almost here.”

He looks at the menu display and cocks his head. It’s different.

“Beth did a border yesterday,” Tyler informs him when he notices where Rio’s looking.

Ah, that’s it. There’s little curlicues at the corners now. Very simple, minimalist, thankfully. Otherwise he might have bitched about it.

“She brought some cookies, too, left them behind the counter, if you want one.”

Rio actually looks at Tyler. “What?”

“Chocolate sugar cookies,” the guy says, reaching under the counter and grabbing a Tupperware container. The cookies are shaped like hearts and are decorated with white icing and pink sprinkles. “She was making them for Emma’s class, brought some of the extras.”

Emma. That’s got to be one of her kids. She’s got four.

“Oh, hi Annie!”

Rio looks over his shoulder to see that someone has come into the store. She’s tiny, wearing denim on denim with a massive pair of sunglasses on.

She comes to the counter and groans out, “Coffee.”

Tyler laughs. “I just need to finish up Rio’s coffee, then I’ll make you yours. Four shots today?”

But Annie’s not paying attention to Tyler anymore, she’s turned to Rio and has pulled down her sunglasses so that she can look at him. “You’re Rio?”

He stares back at her. “Yeah.”

“Huh.” She pushes the sunglasses back up. “I expected you to be taller.”

Rio straightens up. “What?”

“From my sister’s descriptions of you,” she says. When Rio doesn’t reply, she tilts her head. “Beth? She’s about yay high,” she holds her hand up over her head, “red head, works here.”

“I know who Elizabeth is,” he tells her, feeling defensive. “Didn’t know she had a sister though.”

“You kidding?” Annie scoffs, starting to dig through her pocket. “She’s got two of us. Me ’n Ruby.”

Rio nods, accepting the cup when Tyler slides it over. Right, the friend who’d told him not to be a creep.

“She talk about me a lot?”

Annie and Tyler both freeze, then slowly turn their heads to look at him. Annie takes off her sunglasses and ogles him.

“You _like_ her!”

“Who likes who?” Mick chooses the absolute worst moment to come out from the back. “Oh, hey Annie.”

Annie points an accusing finger at Rio. “He likes Beth!”

Mick nods. “Yeah. You just figuring that out?”

Beth’s sister puts her hands on her hips. “Wait, wait, wait, you aren’t dating?”

Mick bursts out laughing. “Him? Please, I have taste.”

Rio isn’t sure whether or not he should be offended by that statement, but he’s caught on Annie’s question still. “She thinks me and Mick are -“

“Partners.”

“We’re business partners,” Rio says.

Annie rolls her eyes. “You can be partners in multiple ways. Now let’s get back to you two not being life partners.”

“What about it?” Mick asks.

“So if you’re not dating, does this mean that you’ve been hitting on my sister this whole time?” Annie demands. “Because she keeps telling me stuff that you say and do and it’s like obviously he’s into you, Beth, but she says you’re just polite.”

Rio glares at all three of them. Tyler has the good sense to vanish.

“I told her that you liked her!” an older man calls out from a nearby table. He looks at Rio over the edge of his glasses, grinning. “I think you’re going to have to be very clear with that one,” he says as he keeps wrapping yarn around his needles.

Mick cackles.

“Ugh,” Annie mutters. “I’m already late for a meeting at the school! This isn’t fair. I have more questions!”

“Go to your meeting, Annie,” the older man says. “Come back next week and I’ll tell you all about it.”

Beth’s sister looks at the man, at Rio, growls under her breath and stomps off.

“Come here,” the older man demands. Rio goes, Mick following and laughing. He finishes a row and marks something on a piece of paper before extending his hand to Rio. “I’m Auli.”

“Rio.”

“I know,” Auli tells him. “I’ve heard all about you. I’ve seen you around plenty of times too. You bake the sweets?”

Rio nods.

“That little almond cookie that you make is very good,” Auli says, taking off his glasses with a smile. “Reminds me of something that my neighbour used to make, back when I moved here in the 60s.”

“Yeah?”

Auli bobs his head. “When my sister comes to visit from Atlanta, I’m going to order at least a dozen. Not a phone call goes by without us talking about those damn cookies.”

It’s all interesting, but Rio’s wondering what the hell this has to do with the fact that Beth is apparently just as interested in him as he is in her.

“You should ask Elizabeth out.”

Rio almost bristles hearing someone else refer to her as Elizabeth.

“That ex-husband of hers was no good,” Auli says with a scowl. “He’s still no good, but at least now she says no to him. Or so Annie says.”

“You and her sister gossip a lot?”

The older man smiles. “With Ruby too, when she comes in on weekends,” Auli tells him. “They’re very close. If you want to date Elizabeth, you’ll have to impress those two. They’re tough judges, but I think it will be easy to win them over.”

Rio frowns. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Prove that you’re interested in her, her hobbies. Don’t make everything about you. Don’t be an ass like her ex-husband and you’ll be fine. Elizabeth already likes you. ”

“She does?” Rio straightens up a little.

Auli just laughs.

——————————————

“Do you just refuse to come into the store when Mick’s working?” Beth teases Rio when he steps inside one evening.

He laughs. “Nah. I see enough of him.” He looks around at the slightly transformed space. It’s Stitch and Bitch night, so Beth has moved the tables and chairs around a little.

“He didn’t mention that you’d be in. Are you picking up something?”

For a moment, he looks uncomfortable. “Mick said you were teaching some mending skills too.”

Beth nods.

Rio lifts up his hand and for the first time, she realizes that he’s got a bag with him. “My son is a menace,” he says with a sigh, “and also refuses to let go of any of his favourite clothes.”

Beth smiles. Then pauses. “Mick never mentioned having a kid.” She’d never seen Mick make anything kid sized either.

He snorts. “ _I_ have a kid. He and Rob are perfectly content being dog parents.”

Her brain skips. “What?”

Rio leans against the counter. “Mick and Rob. They don’t want kids.”

“Who’s Rob?”

“Mick’s partner,” Rio says.

She’s prevented from responding _But you’re Mick’s partner_ by the arrival of a few new faces to Stitch and Bitch night. They only keep the espresso machine on for the first fifteen minutes, so Beth finds herself making a handful of drinks as Rio settles in at a table nearby.

As she makes a decaf latte, she sees him go to the welcome table and select a mending kit, taking it back to the table he’s chosen and opening up the bag that he has.

“Last call for drinks,” Beth says at 7:15 and when no one jumps up to ask for anything, she takes off her apron and comes out from behind the counter.

She has a feeling that once she takes a seat with Rio, she’ll be there for a while, so she goes around to check in with everyone, introducing herself to the newcomers before circling around to him.

At some point, he’s taken out whatever it is that he’s here to mend and while she’d seen him strike up a conversation with one of the regulars, now he’s sitting there patiently, watching her.

“Mending,” she says, sitting across from him. Her throat feels dry.

Rio picks up a piece of fabric and holds it up until she can see that it’s a dinosaur patterned t-shirt with a hole in the middle.

“How did he even do that?” Beth asks, reaching out to take it.

“If you can tell me, I’ll give you fifty bucks,” Rio says. “I got no fucking idea. The knees on his pants? I get those. The elbows of his jackets, fine. That? It looks like he got stabbed.”

Beth inspects the shirt. It’s a visible hole and big too. With the shirt’s pattern, there’s no hiding it. The shirt is a khaki brown and the dinosaurs are black, screen printed onto the fabric. She perks up.

“I’ve got an idea,” she tells him, dashing over to the stack of scrap fabric that’s open for use. “It’s a little more complicated than just a simple patch, but it’ll be cute.”

“I’m all ears,” Rio says, sitting up.

She shows him what she’s thinking by slipping the black fabric she’d grabbed into the shirt to press it up against the hole. “I’m thinking that we actually make the hole a little bigger, but we shape it so that it’s a dinosaur.”

“You can do that?” Rio asks, scratching his ear.

Beth smiles. “You can. C’mon. Needle and thread. I’ll show you what to do.”

Rio, it turns out, knows absolutely nothing about sewing. “I pay people to do this for me,” he grumbles as Beth makes him thread the needle again.

“Then take it to one of them,” Beth says as she draws the outline of a dinosaur on a different scrap of fabric. “But I’m not doing it.”

She shows him the running stitch and the back stitch. His fingers are clumsy at first, but he’s careful and doesn’t rush it. “Ok,” she says, “now use a running stitch to do this outline.”

Rio takes the piece of white fabric that she’s drawn on with a hint of skepticism.

“You aren’t the only one here,” she tells him. “I’ll come back and check on you.”

She glances over at him from time to time as she does a circuit around the room. Sometimes he’s scowling at the fabric, at other times he seems to be ripping out whatever he’s managed to do. When she makes it back to him, he’s done the tail and part of the body and he’s at the very end of his thread, looking confused.

“Okay,” she says, “we’re gonna have to pull out those last few stitches.”

He groans.

By the end of the night, he’s managed to do the rough outline. “Now what?” he asks.

“Now I let you do that on the actual shirt,” she tells him with a smile as she carries dishes to the counter.

“That isn’t being used?”

She shakes her head. “What we’ll do is cut that hole a bit more, then put the black fabric on the inside and stitch the outline of the dinosaur. Then we’ll trim the black fabric on the back.”

“Thanks Beth!” Sopia says with a wave. She was trying to finish a sweater that her mother had started that no one could find a pattern for and it was slow going.

“See you next week!” Beth replies. The only ones left other than her and Rio now are a pair of sisters, Vanessa and Ivy, that have been coming to every session so far.

“You all good here?” Vanessa asks, eyeing Rio.

Beth smiles. “You’ve met Mick, but I don’t think that you’ve met the other owner, have you?” She gestures to Rio. Vanessa relaxes at that and holds out her hand for Rio to shake. “Rio, this is Vanessa. She’s one of the people who expressed interest in a Stitch and Bitch night in the first place, so all of this is partially because of her.”

“Yeah, but you’re the one who does all of it!” Ivy says, shaking Rio’s hand next. “Ivy,” she introduces herself. “You’re not a knitter, huh?”

“How can you tell?” Rio deadpans, then shrugs. “Nah, I helped with funding, but this whole thing is Mick’s baby. I do the baking though.”

“You do?” Ivy grins, stepping a little closer. Beth catches Vanessa’s eye and has to bite her lip when the other woman rolls her eyes.

“Come on,” Vanessa says with a sigh, hooking her arm with Ivy’s. “I don’t want to miss my bus and have to wait half an hour again.”

Beth follows them to the front door and locks up, turning back to find Rio behind the counter.

“Oh,” she says, “did you want to use that door?”

He shakes his head. “My car’s parked out back. Thought I’d help you tidy up though.”

“Don’t have somewhere exciting to be?” Beth half jokes.

“Nope,” he replies. “Marcus is with his mom.”

“No hot date?”

His lips twitch. “Nah. Haven’t really had time for any of those in a while. Where’d you learn to do all this stuff?”

“Hmm?” Beth hums, spraying the tabletops.

“Knitting, sewing,” he says, rinsing out the mugs. “How’d you learn?”

She walks towards the counter. “Some of it my mom knew, although she wasn’t the best teacher. Tended to get frustrated if I didn’t know what she meant right away. But our neighbour knew a bit and my best friend’s mom, so they taught me a lot. Library books. Back then we couldn’t just look everything up online.”

Rio snorts. “How young do you think I am? I remember library books. I’ll have you know that I still use the library.”

“I don’t know!” Beth says. “Some people seem to have something against the library.”

“My dad’s an editor. Textbooks. And my mom just retired from teaching first grade. We’re a library going family.”

Beth smiles at that. “Big family?”

He nods. “Two older brothers and one younger.”

“Your poor mother,” Beth comments.

“Hey!” Rio protests. “We were way better behaved than my cousins. Three girls. Pretty sure they turned their parents’ hair grey before they got to high school.”

Beth goes back to wipe the tables down. “I would have taken you for an oldest child,” she says after a while.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He sounds almost offended.

“Bossy,” Beth calls out.

He laughs. “Nah. There’s a little over six years between me and Joey. I was the baby for a long time.”

She turns to look at him, re-evaluating what she knows about him. To her surprise, it fits. “Mama’s boy?” she guesses.

“We all were,” he says, but it’s slightly self-conscious, which makes Beth think that she might be at least a little bit right.

“Uh huh,” Beth mutters.

It’s much faster to tidy up with someone helping, so Beth finishes earlier than usual.

“What do you do with the leftovers?” Rio asks, pointing to the few croissants and scones.

“When we have them,” Beth gathers them up in the spare grocery bag she keeps in her purse, “I drop them off at the women’s shelter. It’s not a lot, but I figure then at least someone can have them.”

He’s studying her closely.

“What?” Beth asks.

Rio shakes his head. “Nothing. I’ll walk you out.”

She doesn’t point out that he’s also leaving, so it’s not exactly like he’s walking her out. More like they’re leaving together. Simultaneously. Whatever.

Beth flips off the lights before stepping out the back door. She can turn on the alarm with her phone, which she much prefers to the other option of scrambling to get out before her sixty seconds are up.

All done, she looks up at Rio. “Well, it was nice to see you tonight. You should come to more of our events.” Great, now he probably thinks she’s being critical of his involvement in the shop. “If you want,” she tacks on at the end. “Up to you.”

Rio nods. “It wasn’t what I was expecting,” he admits. “And I’m still gonna need help to finish mending this shirt, just so you know.”

She laughs. “Of course. You’re welcome to bring it by again sometime.”

“I’ll do that,” Rio says, nodding once. “Good night, Elizabeth.”

Even though it’s a farewell, he steps closer to her. Beth inhales, catching a whiff of him. There’s a subtle scent of leather from his jacket, but he doesn’t really smell strongly of anything. He just smells…clean. No body odour, clinging sweat, hint of what he had for dinner.

She tilts her head back.

The lights that filter from the street hit his face an angle, making his features appear even sharper.

Beth swallows.

Her bottom lip falls open.

His eyes drop to her mouth.

The blare of a car alarm nearly makes Beth jump out of her skin. She puts her hand over her chest and can feel her heart pounding. It’s only a little bit because of the surprise of the noise.

She clears her throat. “I better get going.”

He nods.

Beth is shaky as she gets into her car, but after a few deep breaths, she manages to start the car and drive away from Rio, who’s still standing by the back door of the shop.

————————————————————

Rio’s there in the morning with his bag. “I’m finishing this shirt today,” he declares. “Please help.”

Beth smiles at him and shakes her head. “I do have work to do, you know.”

“I know,” Rio acknowledges. “And I promise to let you do it. I think I might need supervision though.”

She laughs and shoos him away. “Come back when we’re open.”

“But -“

She practically pushes him out the door. “You’re in my way,” she tells him.

She locks the door behind him and goes about her morning routine. He doesn’t try to come back in, just sits outside on the bench, texting. It’s almost as distracting as him sitting inside.

Still, she gets everything done and opens the door a couple of minutes early because he’s started to pace.

“That’s very annoying, you know,” she tells him.

He gives her a look. “You always this rude to customers?”

“Are you buying anything?” Beth asks sweetly.

He makes a show of considering it. “I’ll get a cheddar and chive scone with my coffee.”

“Almond macchiato?” Beth checks. Just in case he’s switched it in the days since she’d made it for him last.

Rio nods. “What’s your drink of choice?”

She doesn’t hide her surprise. “Why?”

“I can’t want to know about you?” He leans his elbows onto the counter.

Beth shakes her head, then realizes how he’ll probably take that response. “No, it’s not that. You just haven’t really expressed interest in knowing more about me in general,” she says.

He frowns. “Yes I have.”

“When?” Beth keeps her eyes on him as she starts to pull the espresso for his drink.

“I’ve been hitting on you!”

Oh.

“Oh.”

Rio sighs, shaking his head. “You really didn’t notice?”

Beth swallows. “Up until last night, I thought you and Mick were partners.”

He scowls. “That’s what your sister said,” he mutters.

“My sister?”

“Annie.” He uncrosses his arms.

Beth gives him an unimpressed look. “I know what my sister’s name is, thank you. When the hell did you talk to her?”

“She came in one day on her way to work,” he says. “She and that guy, Auli, started going on about how they’d been trying to tell you that I was hitting on you.”

“He sold me out too?” Beth gawks at Rio, already planning to take her patterns back from Auli and refuse to lend him any others.

Rio shifts his weight from foot to foot. “So, you interested? Knowing, as you do now, that I am not dating Mick.”

She can feel her cheeks getting warmer. “I could be,” she says.

“Could be?” Rio asks.

She bites her lip. “I basically have two full-time jobs,” Beth explains. “Between here and my kids, I don’t have a lot of free time. There’s a reason that my dating profile has dust on it.”

He smiles. “Yeah, you can go ahead and delete that.”

Beth turns away from him to steam the milk, shaking her head. “You’re awfully cocky, has anyone ever told you that?”

“Uh huh.” He’s leaning forward on the counter now, grinning widely at her. “So you gonna let me take you out to dinner?”

She considers it. “Lunch.”

“Lunch?” Rio repeats.

“I can’t do dinner most of the time,” she explains. “Either I have the kids and need to go pick them up or I’m closing.”

“I can do lunch,” Rio says.

Before they can make further plans, someone else comes in.

“I’ll be with you in a minute,” Beth tells the customer as they look at the menu. Rio’s still watching her with clear interest. “You’re going to have to handle that mending on your own,” she tells him as she pours the macchiato.

He shrugs. “I remember the bit about threading a needle,” he says, making Beth laugh. She puts the scone on a plate and slides it over to him as well, then turns to the newcomer.

Between customers, she goes to Rio’s table and leads him through mending the dinosaur shirt for Marcus. It shapes up pretty well, even if his stitches are a little wavy in places.

“See?” she says when they reach the end and he clips the tail end of the thread. “Once we trim up the backing fabric, it’ll be all done. Your first hand-mended item of clothing.”

Rio studies the dinosaur cut-out that they’d made with a small smile. “And Marcus can wear this for another two months before he goes through another growth spurt.”

Beth laughs as she turns the shirt inside out. “Don’t remind me. My oldest seems to shoot up another couple inches every time that I turn my back. I can barely keep up with him.”

“You never answered my question earlier.”

Beth looks over at him. “What question?”

“What your drink is,” Rio answers, pointing to the espresso machine.

“You’ll hate it,” she says, recalling his feelings about flavoured coffees.

He lifts an eyebrow. “Will I?”

“Caramel mocha latte.”

He winces. “That’s just sugar,” he tells her, shaking his head. “That’s not coffee.”

“You deal with four kids under the age of eight and we’ll see what kind of coffee you pick as your indulgence,” Beth says, picking up the pair of pinking shears. She holds them up. “These will help prevent fraying.”

She shows him how to use them, then pushes them and the shirt to him and stands.

“I’m going to go make myself a sugary abomination,” she says. “You finish up that.”

“Yes, Miss Boland,” he says. “Wait, that your married name?”

Beth nods. “Didn’t think it was worth the effort of getting it changed back,” she admits. “Besides, it’s my kids’ name.”

“What was your maiden name?” he asks.

“Marks.”

“Elizabeth Marks,” Rio says.

“Irene.” 

He looks confused. 

“Middle name,” Beth says before leaving him at the table. She’s only just finished her own drink when they get a bit of a rush - a combination of mid-morning break time and some out of towners who heard about the shop through Instagram.

If Mick’s surprised that Rio’s there when he arrives, Beth doesn’t catch it. He just slides behind the counter and takes over coffee and cash while she helps the out of town visitors. 

—————————————

Beth’s busy with a small group of women who keep asking questions about the yarn. She clearly knows what she’s talking about and he can hear a steady stream of talking from the other side of the shop.

Rio can’t deny that he’s a little put out that she’d had to abandon their conversation. She still hadn’t agreed to a date and time for their…date.

“The fuck are you doing here?” Mick asks, snatching away his empty plate.

Rio crosses his arms. “Checking up on our business.”

Mick has long since perfected a look that Rio remembers seeing on Mick’s mother’s face whenever he and Mick had managed to get into trouble. Which had happened enough that Rio can recognize the combination of “I’m not mad, I’m disappointed” and “Try that again, but tell the truth this time” even through a beard.

“Has nothing to do with the fact that Beth is working right now?” Mick asks, not even trying for subtlety.

Rio scowls at his friend. “Fuck off.”

Mick’s expression brightens.

“And I’ll have you know,” Rio says, turning Marcus’ shirt right side out again, “that I was getting her help with mending this shirt.”

Mick looks at the shirt, then at Rio. “Uh huh.” He double takes though, and looks back at the shirt, snatching it from Rio’s hands. “You did this?”

Rio nods. “Elizabeth made me do it myself.”

Laughing, Mick inspects the shirt for a moment longer before dropping it on Rio’s head. “Good for her. Don’t you have a meeting at two?”

“Yes,” Rio says through gritted teeth. He _knows_ his own schedule.

“Then you should probably get out of here,” Mick says, “and stop hitting on my employees.”

Rio rolls his eyes, but Mick is right. He does need to leave. He’d just been hoping that he’d have a chance to talk to Beth about when she’d be interested in going to lunch. Or maybe out for a drink after one of those closing shifts she mentioned.

“She’ll still be here later,” Mick reminds him. “That deal won’t be.”

With a sigh, Rio stands and packs his things back in the bag he’d brought with him. “Tell her I said bye,” he mumbles.

“Will do,” Mick says, patting him on the back with way more force than necessary.

He doesn’t see Beth again for almost a week and he’s almost worried that she’ll have forgotten their conversation, but when he walks into the store and sees her, she smiles shyly at him and he knows that she hasn’t.

“I deleted my dating profile,” she says.

“Yeah?”

She nods, the hair that’s slipped from her ponytail bobbing slightly. “Wasn’t using it anyways,” she says.

Rio grins slowly. “You gonna go for lunch with me then?”

“If the offer’s still open.”

“It is,” Rio assures her. “Lunch or drinks after one of your shifts or, I don’t know if you know this, but I got an in with the owner, and I could probably -“

Beth looks mortified as she leans over the counter to cover his mouth, shushing him. “No,” she whispers. “We are not talking about that.”

Rio smiles against her fingers, but nods. He leaves with her phone number and an agreement that she’ll look at her schedule and let him know when she’s free.

If he has an extra pep in his step during the rest of his business for the day, no one comments on it.

————————————————————

Beth regrets mentioning her date to Annie and Ruby almost immediately.

“Play with your straw a lot,” Annie suggests. “It’ll make him think about you blowing him.”

“Annie!” Beth hisses, glancing around to see if any of the kids heard her sister.

“What?” Annie says, taking a sip of her Coke.

Ruby just sighs.

“He’s hot, Ruby,” Annie argues. “If I can get him as my brother-in-law?” She fans herself.

“That’s just nasty,” Ruby says with a grimace.

“Look, if you’d met him -“

“I have,” Ruby cuts in.

“You have?” Beth and Annie ask in unison.

Ruby nods. “I went to visit the store one day when you weren’t there.”

“Why?” Beth wants to know.

“To see what it was like without you trying to make sure that I had a good impression,” Ruby answers. “It was nice even without your interference.”

Beth flushes. So maybe she’d been a little overly effusive in her praise when she was giving Ruby the tour.

“Rio came in. He was good with Harry.”

“He has a little boy,” Beth finds herself saying.

Ruby and Annie both look at her.

“Marcus,” Beth goes on. “He brought in a shirt that he wanted to fix for him. Well, he brought it to Stitch and Bitch.”

“Have you met him?” Annie wants to know. “Because what I’m imagining is just a tiny version of him, complete with facial hair and neck tattoo.”

Beth shakes her head. “No, I haven’t. Not yet anyways.”

“That’s the spirit!” Annie smacks her on the shoulder. “Now we need to figure out what you should wear so that you can be little Marcus’ step-mommy one day.”

“Annie!” Beth and Ruby say at the same time.

“So what does he do?” Annie asks, like neither of them has said a thing. “Other than baking for the store?”

Beth has to shrug, still not entirely sure about that.

Annie hmms, stroking her chin like she’s got a beard. “I’m thinking international man of mystery. Or arms dealer.”

“Why on earth would he be an arms dealer, Annie?” Ruby asks.

“It makes total sense,” Annie says, banging her fist on the table and making Beth jump. “Weird hours. Won’t answer questions about his work. Owns a hobby shop in this economy.”

Beth kicks her sister. “Grow up,” she tells her a second before Jane starts screaming. She sighs and gets up.

————————————————

Beth can’t stop playing with her straw. Every so often, she remembers Annie’s words and she pushes her drink away from herself, intent on not doing it again. It keeps happening though. Ever since the bartender slipped the glass of water that she’d asked for down on the table along with her drink.

The problem is that Beth’s pretty sure it’s working. When she does it, Rio’s eyes drop to her lips. Sometimes he licks his own or his bottom lip falls slightly. And then Beth starts thinking about him kissing her.

“What’s going on in your head?” Rio asks.

Beth snaps to attention. “What?”

“Am I that boring?” he teases, sliding forward a little until his legs meet hers. “Got you running through your to do list?”

She shakes her head.

“Groceries?”

“No!” Beth laughs. “Just something my sister said.”

“What’d she say?” Rio asks, lifting his drink and sipping.

“It’s nothing,” she rushes to say, but she should have known that it would make him more interested in knowing, because he gets a look on his face that Beth would probably describe as intent. “Really!”

“Now I know you’re lying,” he replies.

Beth hunts for a quick subject change. “Do you come here often?” She twirls her finger around to indicate the bar and fuck, did she just use a pick-up line on a date?

The intensity doesn’t fade as he grins. “Sometimes,” he says. “Why, you want my number?”

She rolls her eyes and pushes herself back from the table a little until her shoulders come into contact with the back of the booth. “You know what I mean.”

“You asking because you wanna know the answer or because you’re hoping I’ll forget that you don’t wanna tell me what your sister said that’s got you acting squirrely?” Rio mimics her action, although his legs stay where they are, twined with hers. Beth doesn’t answer that question even as he stares her down. “Stubborn, huh?”

“Better you know now,” Beth mutters under her breath.

“That what happened with your ex?”

She stiffens.

“Shit,” he says, “sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it up like that.”

“Is that insatiable curiosity what broke you and your ex up?” Beth shoots back, taking a long sip of water.

“Touché,” he says, lifting his hands.

“He cheated on me,” Beth finally answers. “More than once.”

Rio’s face hardens. “Shit, really?”

She nods.

“Fucker,” he mutters.

“So forgive me if I’m still a little,” Beth hesitates, “raw.”

He’s already nodding though as he extends his hand until it’s right by hers. “You don’t have to explain that to me,” he says.

“I want you to know where I am,” Beth admits. “I might need this to go a little slow. I’m not exactly in the trusting state of mind these days, as you might be able to guess.”

Rio jerks his head. “How long ago you separate?”

“The divorce went through a month before I started working at Tangled Up, but we’d been separated for almost a year at that point.”

He looks thoughtful. “So just over a year at this point.”

Beth nods. “Yup.”

“You celebrate that?” he asks, a boyish smile taking over his face.

“No,” Beth replies, “I can’t say that I have.”

He lifts up his drink. “You should do that. You, your sister, your friend. Go wild.”

“I’m not exactly the go wild type,” she says.

“I bet you go plenty wild, given enough of a reason. Or tequila,” he adds.

Beth makes a face. “No way. Did that a couple of times in my twenties and believe me when I tell you, never again.”

“Sloppy drunk?” Rio teases.

Beth’s mind jumps to the ink on her hip and shrugs. “Something like that.”

Laughing, Rio calls the bartender over.

————————————————

“I had a nice time,” Beth says to Rio when he walks her to her car afterwards.

He grins. “Just nice?”

Her cheeks pink a little.

“Nah, I’m just teasing,” he says softer. “I had a nice time too.”

Beth leans against the side of her car and looks up at him. “I think that -“

He tilts his head and waits for her to finish.

“I think that I need to take this slow,” she admits.

Rio nods. “I can do that.” He steps a little closer, the toes of their shoes touching. “I got a question though.”

“Yeah?”

“Slow mean I can’t kiss you good night?”

Beth laughs, then grabs the front of his shirt and pulls him towards her.

—————————————————

Everything Beth knows about Rio’s life could fit on a page. He owns - or at least part owns - a yarn shop, bakes, has a son named Marcus, three brothers, two parents, and a partridge in a pear tree. Or something.

When she asks what he does with the rest of his time, he laughs and tells her that keeping Mick in line is a full time job.

“He tell you about the yarn winder he wants to buy?”

Never mind that one day, the yarn winder shows up at the store, making Mick about as giddy as one of her kids after being told they were going to Disney World.

“I own a few properties,” he admits after a while. “They shot up in value over the last few years and I’ve been investing it. Happy?”

Beth’s response is to roll her eyes and chuck a bar peanut at him.

They’re taking it slow. Which, in theory, is exactly what Beth wanted. She’d asked for it. Only now they’ve been going out for a few weeks and all they’ve done is kiss. If she’d known how good it felt to have him kiss her…well, he probably wouldn’t have gone home alone on their first date.

He touches her too, but it’s lightly, always over clothing. He knows it’s driving her a little mad. He just grins as he pulls away.

“Don’t wanna go too fast,” he murmurs.

Rio wanted her to break first, tell him that she’d changed her mind. And she had! Except now it felt like it was almost a game that he was playing and Beth wanted to play too. Wanted him to be the one to break, to say that he wanted her.

And he does. She knows that he does. It’s in the way that he watches her, kisses her, touches her.

But he seems content to grab dinner, then head back to his place and relax on the couch as they both pretend to watch a movie. Beth doesn’t even remember what they picked. Had they picked? Or maybe it had just been on when Rio had turned his TV on and they’d just left it?

She’s leaning against his side, head tucked into his shoulder because his arm is wrapped around her. That night behind the store when they’d nearly kissed, Beth had thought that he didn’t really have a scent, but now, as close to him as she is, she can smell the hint of aftershave, the tiny bit of sweetness that seems to cling to him after baking.

A commercial comes on, blaring louder than whatever was on. Rio snatches up the remote and turns the volume down.

“Fucking hate that they do that,” he mutters.

Beth hums in agreement as he settles back into the couch again. Something about the movement has thrown Beth off balance though and she slides a little. Her hand shoots out to steady herself, landing squarely on Rio’s thigh.

“You good?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Beth replies as she moves her hand a little higher.

She hears him swallow, but he doesn’t say anything.

His thigh is muscular, solid through the denim of his jeans. He slides down a little, parting his legs slightly, lifting one foot onto the coffee table.

“What are you doing, Elizabeth?”

Beth smiles at the way that he says her full name. It should make her feel like she’s in trouble. Instead it makes her feel warm.

“Nothing,” she says, inching her hand even higher.

He lets her explore slowly, not saying anything as her hand gradually comes to rest over the bulge of his hardening cock. His eyes flick back and forth between her face and the TV screen. Beth rubs lightly and he hisses.

“Feels good,” he tells her.

“Yeah?” Beth murmurs. “Pants don’t feel too tight?”

Rio laughs. “Nah, they definitely do.”

“We don’t want that, do we,” Beth comments, undoing his jeans. He groans when she reaches in, underneath the waistband of his underwear to touch his bare cock.

“Fuck,” he mutters, lifting his hips and pulling his pants down a little. When Beth looks at him through her eyelashes, he smiles. “Not eager to get zipper teeth that close to my dick.”

Beth bites back a laugh as she draws his cock completely free. “That better?” she asks.

Rio nods, bending to kiss her at a weird angle. Beth giggles when their noses bump and tilts her head, lifting it away from his chest so it won’t strain his neck too much.

She doesn’t do anything beyond hold his cock in her hand as they kiss, feeling the smooth warmth in her palm as he groans into her mouth.

“Lizabeth,” he says when they break apart.

“Yes?”

“What are you doing?” Rio asks.

Beth looks at his cock, then back at his face. “I’m gonna suck you off,” she tells him. She’s been thinking about it. She’s just so curious about him. Wants to know his reactions, the noises that he makes, the feeling of him on her tongue and in her throat.

She watches him swallow.

“You want that?” she asks.

He nods.

Beth smiles and kisses him again before moving, shimmying awkwardly so that she can get her mouth on him without having to contort her body into something that’s sure to hurt like a motherfucker in the morning.

She holds him in place as she licks the head slowly before she takes it into her mouth. She pulls up and does it again, then a third time. The sharp breath that he lets out is gratifying as she settles into a slow rhythm, her hand moving with her mouth to deal with what doesn’t easily fit into her mouth.

As she warms up, for lack of a better description, she starts to lower her mouth even further, lingering before she pulls her head back up.

“Fuck,” Rio says under his breath as she takes him deeper. His hand settles in her hair, but he doesn’t seek to control her pace, just gathers her hair up and holds it as she bobs up and down on his cock. “Like that.”

Beth can still hear the TV in the background, but it’s quieter. He must have lowered the volume. He groans when she sucks.

“Like that, darlin’,” he says in a husky voice.

The angle’s awkward for Beth, splayed horizontally on the rest of the couch, but her knees rebel a little at the idea of moving to the ground and settling in between his legs.

She takes him far enough that he tickles the back of her throat and his grunt is gratifying. He’s big enough that her jaw aches before long and she pulls up to take a breather as she continues to stroke him with her hand.

But Rio has different plans, hauling her up until she’s on his lap. She’s still got her panties on under her dress, but as he presses her down against his erection, it’s like they’re paper thin. She can feel him right there and she moans.

“You like that?” he asks, mouthing at the underside of her jaw.

She nods.

“Would you like it more if I was inside of you?”

Beth nods again, moving slightly against him.

“Use your words, Elizabeth,” he says right before he nips her chin. “What do you want me to do to you?”

“I want you to -“ Beth swallows, “fuck me.”

“Not yet.”

She pulls her head back. “What, why?”

He grins, reaching up to run his thumb over her bottom lip. “You had your taste, now I want mine. So we’re gonna stand up and walk to my room,” he says, getting up and then slowly lowering her feet to the ground. “Then you’re gonna get in my bed and you aren’t gonna get out of it until you beg me to stop.”

Beth shivers. “That a promise?”

Rio turns her and pushes her gently out of the living room. “Either that or a threat,” he chuckles, his hands pushing up her dress so he can keep touching her ass as they make their way to his bedroom. “Whichever you prefer.”

Before she knows it, she’s naked and falling onto her back. She bounces slightly, then scrambles towards the top of the bed to watch Rio finish stripping before following her. He grabs her ankle and tugs gently, making Beth giggle.

His grin is infectious as he leans down to kiss her calf. He lifts her leg until it’s over his shoulder and bites the skin by her knee even as his hand slides the rest of the way up her thigh to dance his fingers over her cunt. He hums.

For all that Rio starts slowly, he quickly settles in with his mouth against her. He licks and he sucks and bites as he explores, figuring out what makes her moan.

He’s circling her clit with his tongue when she comes with a little gasp.

She has to pull at his head to get him to stop.

“You made me come,” she says, “now put your dick in me.”

Rio chuckles, biting at her belly. “Oh baby, we’re just getting started.”

To make a point, he slides two fingers inside of her quickly. Beth’s legs twitch. Still grinning and keeping eye contact, he lowers his head again at the same time that he crooks his fingers.

“Oh fuck,” Beth groans.

He drags it out this time. “You normally get this wet?” he asks, pulling away for a breath. She shakes her head. “All for me?”

“Yeah,” she says, her voice embarrassingly high pitched.

“Good,” he replies. “I’m a greedy man.”

She can believe that.

“You come for me again, I’ll fuck you.”

“Promise?” Beth asks.

He nods.

“Then get back to it,” she tells him.

Laughing, he goes back to eating her out, slowly working in a third finger. Unlike her first orgasm, this one is loud when it hits. Beth can hear herself moaning and muttering, “Oh god, oh god,” as his fingers and tongue fuck her through it.

She’s panting when he finally sits back. Leaning over to the nightstand, he grabs a condom from the nightstand.

“Still want it?” he asks as he rips it open.

Beth nods.

Rio shifts until he’s lined up with her. “Good,” he says right before kissing her and pushing in. He tastes like her and she isn’t sure if it’s that or the pressure of his cock that makes her shudder.

“Fuck me,” she demands.

Laughing, he pulls back. “Yeah? You want it hard?”

She swallows, unsure of how hard he means.

“Like this?” His hips snap into hers and Beth sees stars.

“Yes,” she answers, nodding.

Now that he’s fucking her, he stops talking beyond the occasional muttered “fuck” or “like that?” His hands find her hips, lifting her slightly until he’s palming her ass while he gives her exactly what she’d been asking for earlier.

Beth doesn’t even expect to come again, not really, so it comes as a surprise when she starts feeling the familiar pull. Moaning, she licks the fingers of her right hand and sets them over her clit, rubbing in time with Rio’s rhythm.

He comes first, having staved it off for much longer. His climax is only marked by a low groan and his hips pressing hers all the way back down to the mattress even as his hands pull her closer.

She can’t help but whimper at the pressure against her and she rubs faster until —

“Fuck,” Rio murmurs, falling forward to rest his forehead against hers.

——————————————————

Beth wakes up in sheets softer than anything she thinks she’s ever felt in her life. She groans at the dull aches she feels in her body, earning a chuckle from the warm body behind her.

“Sore?” Rio asks, pulling her closer to him.

She nods, keeping her eyes shut.

“Good sore?” he asks, palm settling on her hip.

She nods again.

“Don’t worry,” he says, “you’ll get used to it.”

“It?” Beth finally opens one eye, turning her head to catch a glimpse of him.

He grins, moving his head so that he can kiss her. “Isn’t that what you suburban types like to call sex? Doing it.”

Beth snorts. “We also just call it sex.”

“Hanky panky,” Rio goes on. “Makin’ love,” his voice goes syrupy sweet.

“Fucking,” Beth cuts in. “Hooking up. Boinking.”

“Boinking?” Rio laughs at that. “Please don’t call it boinking.”

She smiles as she settles back into the sheets and lets her eyes fall shut again. “So what you’re saying is that I’ll get used to boinking.”

He groans and she can feel him shake his head. “You’re killing me, Elizabeth. But yes, you will.”

“You do know that I’ve had sex before,” she reminds him. “I have kids to prove it and everything.”

“Yeah,” Rio says, “but he wasn’t giving you what you needed. Hadn’t been for a long time, if I had to guess.” He grinds against her ass and Beth feels that he’s starting to get hard. Or rather, harder.

A gasp slips out of her mouth and morphs into a moan when his hand comes down between her legs.

She is feeling a little…tender, but his fingers are gentle as he strokes them back and forth over the entrance of her cunt.

Beth groans.

Later, as they’re showering, she rolls her eyes at the bruises that he’s managed to scatter all over her.

“Not funny!” Beth protests from Rio laughs. “How would you like it if you woke up with -“

“Yes,” he cuts her off. “Just yes.”

Turning to look at him, she lifts an eyebrow. So it was like that, huh?

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she teases.

————————————————

Beth winds up the wool and passes it to the customer with a smile before glancing at the clock. They’re closing any minute and Rio’s supposed to be picking her up in thirty minutes.

She just needs the door to stay -

The bell tinkles and she groans inside.

“Hi!” she calls out. “I’ll be with you in a second.”

“Why are you cancelling my time with them?”

Her head jerks up and she sees Dean standing there, scowling at her.

“What?” she asks, lost.

He storms towards the counter. “I just got a call from Kenny saying that he doesn’t want to interview me for his school project anymore and he won’t be coming in this weekend.”

“That’s the first I’m hearing of it,” Beth says. “Why are you coming in here and yelling at me? You know this is my work right?”

Dean scoffs, looking around. “It’s a craft store,” he mutters under his breath.

“It’s inappropriate.” Beth crosses her arms. “I’d like you to leave.”

“Not until we talk about this and you agree to —“

“There a problem?” Rio’s voice is soft, but somehow it still carries across the store, cutting through Dean’s.

Dean’s startled by the interruption, but he promptly goes back to ignoring Rio. “Nothing, man,” he says, “just talking to Bethie.”

“Yeah I wasn’t asking you,” Rio says, looking to Beth. He seems to be bigger than he usually is, his softness disappearing with his scowl and cutting tone. “You ok?”

“This is my ex-husband,” she explains with a nod in Dean’s direction.

“Ah.” Rio leans against the counter. “We’re closing.”

“Do you work here?” Dean asks.

“Something like that.” Rio crosses his arms.

Dean nods. “Well, Beth and I need to talk about our kids.”

“You thought the appropriate way to do that was to ambush her at work?” Rio says before Beth can get a word in.

“This has nothing to do with you,” Dean snaps, getting frustrated.

Rio snorts. “Yeah, when you come into my place of business and harass people, it becomes my problem. So you’re going to turn around and you’ll contact her however you’ve agreed to.”

Dean looks at Beth.

“It’s inappropriate for you to come here like this, Dean,” she repeats her earlier words. “And Kenny didn’t mention anything about his project. I’ll talk to him tonight.”

He looks like he’s going to argue, but then Rio straightens up to his full height and it’s enough of a reminder to send Dean out the door.

“I’ll lock it,” Rio tells her. “You take a sec.”

“I’m fine,” she tries to say, but he shakes his head.

“You’re shaking.” He smiles and nods towards a chair. “Take a second to catch your breath again.”

She does just that.

If she’d shown up to the dealership like this, she had no doubt that Dean would have made a big deal about it.

“Has he done this before?” Rio asks, coming back with a cup of water for her.

She shakes her head.

“You worried about him?”

Beth sips at the water. “Not really. Just annoyed.”

Rio touches her chin. “Want me to take you home? I know we said that you were gonna spend the night at my place but —“

“No,” Beth cuts him off. “I don’t want to change our plans.” She smiles at him. “Especially if you’re going to feed me like you promised.”

He smiles back. “I got everything all set.”

“Then I don’t want to miss it. Help me close up?”

Rio takes over counting cash and receipts, which he does twice as fast as she normally does even if he doesn’t do it often. He’s absurdly good with money, she’s noticed. It seems to move through his hands easily, growing and accumulating as it does.

It doesn’t take her long to sweep and shut down the coffee machine, so she’s just packing up the leftovers when Rio comes out of the back office.

“Are you okay with stopping by the shelter?” she asks.

Rio smiles and shakes his head even as he says, “Yeah. You trying for sainthood or something?”

Beth rolls her eyes. “No,” she tells him. “Just trying to do something for other people. Oh, that reminds me, did Mick talk to you about us doing a hat and mitten drive?”

They talk as they finish closing and locking up. When he opens the car door for her, Beth blushes. She can’t remember the last time that someone did that for her.

“This isn’t the same car that I’ve seen you in before,” she comments, looking around the inside of the very spacious SUV. “Do you have a lot of cars?”

“Just the two,” he replies, pulling out of the alley behind the store. “So where we dropping those off?”

She directs him to the shelter, then leaves him in the car while she runs inside to drop off the food. When she climbs back in, he’s typing something quickly in his phone.

“Everything ok?”

He nods. “Just some issues with a shipment.”

“A shipment?” Beth asks, doing up her seatbelt.

He seems to realize that he’s just said something because he looks startled when he turns his head towards her. “Don’t worry about it,” he tells her.

She smiles awkwardly, but drops the subject, even as that new little piece of information lodges itself into the back of her mind.

Dinner turns out to be just as delicious as promised, although it’s not because Rio made it.

“You got your mom to cook for us?” Beth asks.

“No!” he defends himself, laughing. “I took Marcus over the other day and he was running his mouth about how I’ve got a girlfriend now. Long story short, my mother wants to meet you.”

Beth isn’t entirely sure she believes that. “I know you can bake,” she says, helping clear the table. “But is this when I find out that you can’t cook?”

“I can cook!” Rio protests. “I just…don’t do it a lot.”

“Uh huh.” Beth finishes off her glass of wine and puts it next to the sink.

“I mostly do it when Marcus is here on weekends,” he admits as he fills the sink with soapy water. “My schedule can be kind of all over the place.”

“Mick says that you have some other businesses.” Beth gets a tea towel so that she can help dry the dishes as he does them. “But not much more than that. I know you don’t bake for any other places, even though you should.”

“Yeah?” He turns his head to smile softly at her.

“You’re very talented,” she says, bumping her hip against his, “and you know it. We get questions about who supplies us all the time.”

“Hope you tell everybody that I’m exclusive,” he jokes. “Don’t want to be spreading my cookies around town to just anybody.”

Beth chokes on a laugh. “That was just bad.”

Rio passes her a plate to rinse. “What can I say, most of my material is aimed at six year olds. And the rest of it goes pretty far in the other direction with a whole lot of bad words.”

“I can take it,” Beth tells him. “I’ve been to PTA meetings and you would not believe some of the stuff that goes on at those.”

“Like what? Karen calling Kelly Anne’s brownies dry?”

“First of all, there is no one named Karen on the PTA this year,” Beth replies. “Second, I’m pretty sure that Kelly Anne is selling weed.”

“What?” Rio sputters, looking at her with wide eyes.

Beth nods. “Yup. I can’t figure out if she’s growing it herself or not.”

Rio’s still staring at her. “She’s selling at the PTA meetings?”

“It’s not like the kids come to those,” Beth says with a shrug. “And she does it in the parking lot.”

His mouth opens and closes a few times.

“You look like a fish,” Beth tells him. “Don’t tell me that you’re shocked by drugs. Or by middle aged white women doing them. Wasn’t there an entire TV show about that?”

Rio laughs. “You’re a mystery to me,” he says, leaning over to kiss her. “I never know what’s gonna come out of your mouth next.”

“Hey!”

“One minute, it’s knitting and your kids, then it’s suburban bi— ladies,” he clearly catches himself before he says bitches, “selling to the PTA.”

She elbows him in the side. “No calling women bitches,” she scolds. “Only I’m allowed to do that.”

“Uh huh, sure.” He goes back to scrubbing a serving dish.

It’s surprisingly easy to settle down with Rio after dinner. He has some work to do, but she’s brought her book club book with her, so she spreads out on the couch to read while he finishes up.

She’s managed to make it through almost two chapters when he joins her.

“All done?” she smiles up at him.

“More or less,” he sighs, rubbing the back of his neck.

Beth sets her book aside and curls her legs up so that Rio can sit. He takes the open space and tugs at her ankle until she stretches out again.

“You want to talk about it?” he asks.

She shrugs. “Not much to talk about. Dean likes to make himself the centre of attention. Everything works because of him and when it’s not going right, it’s because the world is against him.”

“I know the type,” Rio says, starting to massage her calf.

Beth’s eyes slip shut and she slumps a little more into the couch. Rio chuckles. “You get many opportunities to relax?”

“I take a nice bubble bath from time to time,” she replies.

He switches to her other leg. “I’m talking about pampering. Massage, that kind of thing.”

She opens one eye enough to see his face. “I’ve never had a massage.”

“I’d offer,” he says, “but I doubt it would be anything like the real thing.” He grins and leans towards her. “You should go for one sometime. I’ll make you an appointment at the place I go.”

“You go for massages?”

“Yeah. Helps with stress and it’s nice to just take that time for myself.” Rio moves smoothly despite their position until he’s spread out on the couch too. “This is good too.” He kisses her and Beth wraps her arms around his neck to hold him against her.

It isn’t necessary, he clearly has no intention of pulling away, too busy kissing her breathless.

She’s the first to make a move to push this a little further along, tugging at the back of his t-shirt until he pulls away long enough to yank it over his head. Her hands are drawn to his chest, exploring the muscles there.

He grins, coming back down to keep kissing her even as he starts to unbutton her shirt as well.

“Want you to ride me,” he says, making her shiver. “Will you do that for me?”

She nods.

He doesn’t immediately act to get them naked. Instead, he buries his face in her neck for a moment, pressing his erection against her through their pants.

Smiling, Beth slides her hands up over his smooth skin, over his shoulders, until she reaches the hair on the back of his neck. “That’ll feel better when you’re inside of me,” she tells him.

“Oh, I know,” he agrees, nipping just next to her bra strap.

Rio stands, hands going to his belt. Beth follows his lead, shimmying out of her jeans and raising an eyebrow when he pulls a condom from his pocket and tosses it onto the cushions.

“You had plans, huh?” she teases him.

He sits on the couch, stroking his cock absently as he watches her take off her underwear, a focused look in his eyes. “Always do when it comes to you,” he drawls, grabbing the condom.

She giggles as he puts it on, moving to straddle him so that she’s lined up with his cock. “Is that so?” she asks.

Nodding, he pulls her into a kiss. Beth doesn’t sink onto him right away. Instead, she just teases him for a moment until Rio’s hands start to try moving her.

“Impatient, impatient,” she says, but she does exactly what he wants anyways, taking him inside all in one go. He groans, forehead coming to rest on her collarbone.

“That what you wanted?”

He nods, kissing up her throat as she starts to move. His hands grip her hips and her own land on the back of the couch for leverage.

She can feel the weave of the couch embedding itself into her knees as she moves, but she can’t bring herself to mind.

Rio lifts Beth’s breast so that he can get his mouth on it as she rocks slowly in his lap. She loves it like this - controlling the pace and depth - and he doesn’t mind letting her have it. It doesn’t mean he isn’t going to indulge in his favourite parts too. She moans as he takes her nipple between his teeth and bites down enough to tease.

“Yes,” she gasps, holding onto the back of his head. “Rio.”

He soothes the bite with the flat of his tongue and a kiss, then lifts his head. “That’s it,” he encourages her. “Say my name.” He switches to her other breast.

She’s leaning back enough that he grabs her to stop her from toppling off of him and onto the coffee table, which has the added benefit of holding her in place against his mouth.

Beth can’t hold back a giggle and she can feel Rio grinning against her skin as well before he lifts his head.

“We gotta make some adjustments for safety purposes?” he teases.

“I dunno,” she replies, just grinding back and forth. “Do we?”

“I think you like the danger, Elizabeth,” Rio says, thrusting his hips up sharply.

She moans.

“Yeah, you do,” he goes on. He surges forward and Beth gasps, wrapping her arms around his neck as he lays her on the coffee table and starts fucking her in earnest. 

The table isn’t very wide, so her head is hanging over the edge and when movement catches her eye, she realizes that from this spot, she can see them in the hallway mirror. She’s flushed red, her hair hanging down towards the carpet, mouth open because she can’t stop making noises.

“Rio,” she cries out. Bringing her hand to her mouth, she licks her fingertips, then works her hand between them to circle her clit.

He laughs, although it’s a little strangled as she tightens around him.

She keeps her eye on Rio’s reflection, watching his face contort with pleasure. He wants her to come first, but she’s tempted to do her best to hang on and drag it out of him.

He groans as she lifts her hips to meet him.

“Come on, Elizabeth,” he bends so that his face is hovering over her neck and then —

They make eye contact in the mirror and he grins.

“Oh,” he says, slowing his movements, “you wanna watch, huh?”

Beth moans, still rubbing her clit.

“We can do that,” Rio nearly purrs into her skin, still meeting her eyes as he licks her throat.

“Faster,” she demands.

“Harder, better, faster, stronger,” he teases, “any other requests?”

Beth arches her back. “More.”

He looks delighted by that response and picks up the pace again. It’s just a few more thrusts and a well timed flick before she’s coming.

She moans, clinging to him as he shifts enough to kiss her while he fucks her through it. She’s still a little starry eyed when she swallows the groan that heralds his own impending orgasm.

His hips stutter and then it comes, Rio’s moan loud in the otherwise quiet room. Beth sighs, gripping his shoulders as he finishes.

“You good?” he asks after a minute, moving so she’s not in danger of sliding off the coffee table.

Beth nods.

“Shower?”

She nods.

“Can you talk?” he teases.

She sticks out her tongue at him and he laughs, gathering her up in his arms to kiss her softly. She shrieks when he stands, holding onto him tightly. “Rio! Put me down!”

“No.”

She wriggles in his arms, but he carries her all the way to the bathroom.

All that Beth can think is that it makes her feel warm and fuzzy, like she’s just been wrapped in a well loved blanket.

—————————————————————

They’ve been dating for the better part of four months — have met each other’s children and everything, but Beth continues to be surprised every time that Rio does things differently from Dean.

He doesn’t complain about getting into the passenger’s seat of a car that a woman’s driving.

When she mentions wanting to see a movie, he looks into where it’s playing and sets it up.

They cook _together_. If he swipes something to try, she doesn’t feel that burst of irritation because he isn’t taking something that she’s been working on, he’s enjoying something that they’ve made.

So what if she gets the feeling that he’s not being completely truthful about what he does.

It’s been a quiet evening — they’d ordered in for once — and they’re getting ready to go to sleep in Rio’s far too big, far too luxurious bed. This is still an occasional thing of course. Between Beth needing to be home during the week and Rio having custody of Marcus most weekends, sleepovers are still few and far between.

Beth’s thinking about that as she pats her face dry with a washcloth, then applies moisturizer. Maybe they can start easing the kids into the idea of having someone stay over.

When she leaves the bathroom, Rio’s sprawled out on the bed, almost completely naked. She’s still getting used to this, the amount of comfort that he feels in his body and how comfortable he feels about hers as well.

Smiling, she takes a bit of a running leap, bouncing on the mattress and making Rio laugh.

Rolling, he cages her under his arm. “I gotta give you the same talk I give Marcus about jumping on the bed?”

“Maybe,” she replies.

He rolls his eyes, but leans down to kiss her rather than giving her that lecture. It’s just a soft kiss at first, a brush of lips, but then Rio shifts so that he’s hovering over her and opens his mouth.

It’s an intense kiss. Everything with him is intense, really. But it feels like he’s kissing her with his whole body when they’re like this, pressed together.

She thinks that she could spend ages just kissing him.

He pulls away to plant a line of kisses down her throat at the same time that he rubs his growing erection against her core and Beth…stiffens.

Rio lifts his head right away, asking her with a glance what’s wrong.

Beth shakes her head. “Not tonight,” she says quietly, waiting for him to say something about how he wants it. Waits for an accusation of being frigid. It doesn’t come.

Instead, he kisses her cheek. “Alright,” he says, squeezing her hip and starting to pull away. Beth grabs his shoulders. “What is it?”

“That’s it?” she asks. “Alright?”

The lamp is still on, so she can see the confusion on his face. “You said you didn’t want to,” he says slowly. “What other answer is there?”

Beth doesn’t say anything. Understanding starts to dawn on Rio.

“He ever hurt you?” he asks with a gentleness that Beth can tell he’s forcing himself to maintain. “Pressure you into doing what you didn’t want to?”

“I-“ Beth starts to say, then shuts her mouth, shakes her head.

“Really? ‘Cuz it sounds like he didn’t take too kindly to being told no,” Rio says, touching the side of her face.

She bites her lip. “He complained. When I didn’t want to, I mean.”

And she had given in sometimes, but less and less as time went on until they’d stopped having sex completely and Dean had run dick first into whoever was willing.

“Elizabeth,” Rio murmurs, tilting her face back towards his, “you say no to me, and that means no. If you aren’t sure, you say that you aren’t sure. Okay? I can take care of myself. Don’t worry about that.”

Beth doesn’t say anything.

“I’m gonna need a verbal confirmation that you heard that,” he says with a small smile. “You got it?”

“Got it,” Beth says.

He gives her a quick kiss and starts to pull away, but the thing is, while Beth isn’t exactly in the mood, she isn’t…not in the mood. And she’s curious, wants to know how he takes care of himself. So she grabs his arm. He stops moving.

“I want to -“ her throat dries up and she has to swallow a few times before she can finish her sentence, “watch.”

Rio’s eyes widen slightly. His throat bobs. “Yeah?”

Beth nods.

It takes a moment for them to get organized - Rio on his back and her pressed against his left side as he takes his cock in his right hand. Beth bites her lip as she watches him fist his cock, drawing his hand up to the tip, where he rubs his thumb over the head. It’s almost spellbinding, watching Rio jerk off. He alternates between being gentle and rough with himself, slowing when his breathing starts to pick up.

“You like to drag it out?” Beth asks.

He groans. “Sometimes,” he admits. “Like when you’re watching.”

She watches him drop his hand to his balls, watches him massage them.

“Thought about you,” Rio says, turning his head to look at her. “When we started dating.”

“Yeah?”

“Uh huh.” The mattress trembles as he lifts his hips to fuck into his hand. “Thought about fucking you, what you’d feel like. Taste like.”

She swallows, throat dry.

“Was I anything like you imagined?” she wonders.

“Better.”

“What did you think about?”

Rio groans. “Thought about making your tits bounce when I’m fucking you.”

Beth can feel her cheeks warm.

“Getting you all flushed and panting for me,” he says. “Wanted to know if you’d still be all prim and proper.”

“Am I?” Beth asks.

“Fuck no,” Rio laughs, the speed of his hand picking up. “You like to watch when you’re getting fucked. You beg for me to give it to you harder and faster. So now whenever I see you, I think about when I bent you over the back of the couch and I want to do it all over again.”

She strokes his belly, moving her hand lower. “You want to debauch me?”

“Debauch you? Think it’s the other way around. Never gotten hard just looking at an apron ’til I started thinking about you in nothing but an apron.”

Beth hums.

“You’d like that, huh?”

“Yes, fuck,” he curses. He’s getting close.

“You’re a pervert,” Beth tells him, clucking her tongue. He laughs. “What, you want to come home to a good little wifey? Someone all ready to take care of all your appetites?”

“I was thinking you’d be my main course,” Rio tells her, grunting when her hand brushes against his cock. “Oh shit,” he mumbles seconds before he starts to come.

He groans low as he spills onto his stomach, hips twitching as he gets out every last drop of cum.

Beth kisses his side and nuzzles into him as he sighs.

“I should get cleaned up,” he says, shifting to kiss her before getting off the bed.

“Turn off the light when you come back to bed,” she reminds him, getting under the covers and settling in. It doesn’t take Rio long to clean up and when he returns, he remembers to turn off the light before sliding into bed behind her.

“Thank you,” she says, “for being understanding.”

“You don’t need to thank me for that, sweetheart,” he replies, wrapping his arms around her. “You can thank me for beating the shit out of your ex though.”

Beth giggles, then claps her hand over her mouth.

“You gonna quiet down?” Rio teases, squeezing her. “Some of us have work tomorrow.”

She elbows him gently, but smiles as she falls asleep.

—————————————————————

“Mick here?”

Beth looks up from the online order that she’s packing up, only to come face to face with someone who looks like he’d rather be anywhere than a yarn store.

She coughs. “I’m sorry?”

“Mick,” the man repeats, scowling. “He here?”

“Can I ask what this is about? I’ll let him know that someone’s here to see him.” She picks up her phone.

The guy continues glowering, but nods. “Tell him it’s Marcel.”

“Of course,” she tells him brightly. “Just give me a minute.”

She’s not sure what makes her do it, but she pulls up Rio’s contact info first.

_Marcel here for Mick._

“No, not Maggie,” she mutters to herself, like she’s just pulled up the wrong person, then hits the call button, smiling at Marcel.

“Hey,” Mick picks up after two rings, “what’s up?”

“Hi Mick,” she greets him. “There’s someone here named Marcel looking for you. Is there something that he should be picking up?”

“Fuck,” she hears him curse. “He there alone?”

“Uh huh,” she replies. There’s only one other person in the shop right now and she’s lost in choosing some yarn for a pair of socks.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Mick says.

“I’ll tell him. See you soon.” She hangs up and turns her attention back to Marcel. “He’s on his way,” she informs him, “although I’m not sure how long it will take. Take a seat,” she gestures towards the cafe seating, “and I can get you some coffee?”

Marcel considers her, then nods once. “Latte.”

He practically stomps over to a table, but once he’s seated, he pulls out his phone and starts texting furiously.

She’s just finished grinding the beans when her phone starts buzzing. She glances at the screen.

_RIO._

Biting her lip, she answers it. “Hi honey,” she says before he can say anything. “I’m at work. Can this wait?”

“He still there?” Rio asks.

“Yup.” She tamps the grounds.

Like Mick, he curses. “Fuck. Mick on his way?”

“Uh huh.”

“He alone?”

Sighing, she finishes prepping the espresso and jams the button to start the water more vigorously than she probably needs to.

“You know,” she tells him, “it would be much easier if you just asked your questions together so that I only had to answer them once.”

“Alright, alright,” he says. “I’m on my way too, but Mick is closer. You start getting really bad vibes, go stand by the front windows, okay?”

“I can do that.”

“Fuck,” he mutters again. “I’ll see you soon.”

Her hands shake a little as she pours milk into the jug to steam it, but she manages to steady herself by the time that she takes the latte over to Marcel.

“Thank you,” he says politely, his earlier posturing fading away. “You worked here long?”

Beth nods. “Ever since we opened.”

Marcel looks around the shop as he takes his first sip of his coffee. “People pay that much money for yarn?” he asks, gesturing to the price on the section of merino that’s closest to them.

She laughs. “Don’t look at the cashmere and silk then,” she warns.

His eyebrows go up. “How many of those balls would you need to make a sweater?”

“Depends on the sweater and the wool. Could be three, could be ten.”

Marcel whistles. “You know about buying clothing, right?”

“It’s not the same,” she replies. “Have you ever received something that someone made for you?”

He considers her question, then nods.

“Plus, it’s a hobby for most people.” Beth props her hip against the counter. “A way to pass the commute or something to do with your hands when you’re watching TV or at a hockey game.”

“Expensive hobby,” Marcel comments.

“Well,” she says, seeing Mick approaching the front door, “it’s more productive than cocaine. Hi Mick!”

Mick nods to her and stands in the door, gesturing for Marcel to join him outside.

The man stands, taking his coffee cup with him. “Thank you for the lesson,” he drawls with a nod in her direction.

“Of course,” Beth says. “Have a great day!”

The two men leave and she checks on the woman still debating over two pinks for her socks before retreating behind the counter.

Beth watches Mick talking with the man outside, something strange settling in her belly.

She can’t tell what they’re saying, but neither of them seems particularly happy. Mick gestures and Marcel shakes his head.

“I’ve decided on this one!”

Beth nearly jumps out of her skin when the customer speaks up. “Of course!” she says with what might be a squeak and nearly snatches the yarn from the woman’s hands. “Have you shopped with us before?”

By the time that the transaction is done, Mick and Marcel are gone from the sidewalk out front and Beth is left to wonder what the hell is going on.

Rio arrives before Mick returns and he looks on edge as soon as he bursts in, beelining right for her.

“He hurt you?” he asks, checking Beth over.

“No,” she says, drawing out the vowel. “He went off with Mick.”

“I know,” Rio mutters. “He say anything weird to you?” He comes behind the counter and takes Beth’s hand, rubbing his thumb over her palm.

She shakes her head. “I made him a coffee. He asked about yarn. Mick showed up.”

“You -“ Rio stares at her. “You made him coffee?” His voice is a little strangled.

“Should I not have?” Beth asks.

He starts to laugh, then sobers. “You say anything about me?”

“No.”

“Alright, good. When Mick comes back, you take the rest of the day off and —“

“That’s ridiculous,” Beth cuts him off. “I have no idea what just happened and I’m fine. Now shoo, I’m busy.”

He seems like he’s going to protest at first, but when she makes shooing motions, he retreats.

“Then I’ll stick around,” he decides.

“Coffee?”

It takes Mick an hour to return, seemingly calmer than he did outside when he was talking to Marcel.

“He say anything weird to —“

Beth holds up her hand and then points at Rio. “He already asked all of those questions.”

Mick looks sheepish as he backs away from her and goes to sit with Rio. Their voices are lowered as they talk. At two, Tyler shows up for the closing shift. For Beth, it lightens the mood considerably, even if Mick and Rio are still muttering to one another.

“I’m heading out,” she tells them. It looks like Rio’s about to stand, but she waves him off. “I have to run errands, so don’t worry about it.”

He looks unsure.

“Call me tonight?” he asks.

Beth nods.

All afternoon, her thoughts are filled with Marcel and what the hell him coming into the store had meant.

If she’s being completely honest with herself, she can admit that there was maybe a thing or two about the business that hasn't exactly…added up.

The box of yarn she’d tried to move one day that had been way too heavy to contain nothing but skeins of cashmere.

A spreadsheet she’d peeked at over Mick’s shoulder.

Rio’s caginess about his business.

An overheard conversation or two.

Luckily, the kids are around, demanding her attention and focus.

“Danny, no,” she sighs. “You can’t rub slime in your sister’s hair.”

Jane takes the opportunity to try to roundhouse kick Danny, but it doesn’t end well, so she doesn’t get a chance to call Rio until a little later than she’d planned.

“Hi,” he answers.

“Hi,” Beth says as she collapses back onto her bed. “I’m exhausted.”

“Oh?” Rio asks.

“Spent the last couple of hours cleaning up blood,” she tells him.

“Shit,” he mutters. “What happened?”

“Jane tried to kick Danny, managed to hit her head on the side table.”

“She ok?”

Beth hums. “She’s fine. But head wounds bleed a lot and Danny’s not good with blood, so he passed out.”

She hears his choked laughter on the other end. “Sorry,” he quickly says.

“Laugh it up,” she grumbles. “But just remember that if you keep dating me, you’re going to be dealing with them regularly too.”

He doesn’t stifle his laughter this time. “Maybe I can talk some sense into them,” Rio suggests. “Unlike you and whatever you’re doing.”

Beth snorts. “Good luck with that. You might succeed with Emma, but the rest of them?” She shakes her head even though Rio can’t see her.

They fall into an easy rhythm of conversation and Marcel doesn’t come up.

—————————————————

It doesn’t mean that Beth forgets about Marcel though.

The opposite really. She doesn’t think she could forget his visit if she tried.

She contemplates telling Annie and Ruby, but decides to hold off. No need to worry them if she’s just imagining things, right?

Mick is in the shop every day after Marcel’s visit.

“No need for me to be anywhere else,” he tells her with a shrug, but Beth has her suspicions about why he’s sticking around himself.

Still, it’s nice to have him around. In addition to being a skilled knitter and whatever else he does, Mick is funny. His dry humour makes the shifts go by quickly, even if his presence prevents her from doing some snooping around.

Six days after Marcel, Rio comes into the shop with their baked goods for the day and a foul look on his face.

“What’s that look for?” Beth asks, taking the boxes from him and replacing them with the coffee she’d prepped for him.

“Gotta go out of town for a few days,” he replies.

“Oh. Is everyone ok?”

He nods. “It’s nothing like that.”

Beth swallows and forces herself to smile. “Where you going? Anywhere nice?”

“Depends if you think Montreal in November is nice,” Rio says.

“Never been,” Beth admits as she unpacks the boxes and puts the scones into the display.

“No?” Rio leans on the counter. “I’ll take you next time. When it’s not so last minute.”

Her smile is genuine now. “I’d like that.”

“Good.” He smiles back. “Give me a goodbye kiss?”

Beth glances towards the front window, but it’s still early, so she comes around to his side of the counter and pulls him into a kiss.

“Have a safe trip,” she tells him when she pulls away.

Rio nods and tucks a piece of her hair back. “Will do, Elizabeth.”

“Stop harassing my employees,” Mick calls out from the door.

“Fuck off,” Rio replies. He bends to kiss Beth’s head and he murmurs, “Bye,” into her hair, then he’s gone.

She turns to Mick, who’s tying up his apron. “Is everything ok?” she asks him.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?”

“Because Rio’s heading to Montreal for a few days,” Beth comments. “He said everyone’s ok, so I assume it’s business related.”

Mick shrugs. “It’ll be fine.”

She lets it go. “Did we get the order from Pom Pom?” she asks instead.

The store has been getting more popular, for both the coffee and the yarn, so the day passes easily.

Auli appears after lunch, an older woman accompanying him.

“Elizabeth!” he proclaims. “Come and meet my sister. Bring some of those almond cookies.”

Beth laughs, but puts a few of them on a plate.

“Go ahead and take a bit of a break if you want,” Mick says. “Sit and chat.”

“Thanks,” she says, grabbing her coffee to take to the table with her.

Auli is smiling widely, but he waits until she sits to start talking.

“This is Marikka,” he says, gesturing to the woman. “And this is Elizabeth. She gave me the pattern for the shawl I made you.”

“Oh!” the woman brightens. “The shawl is lovely.”

“I can’t take credit for that,” Beth protests. “Your brother made it.”

Marikka makes a psh noise. “If you didn’t make him expand his horizons, he would still just be making the same pair of mittens! So the shawl was a delight. My brother tells me that your young man makes these cookies.”

Beth nearly chokes on her sip of coffee.

“They taste like Mrs. Holmes used to make,” Auli says, pushing the plate towards his sister. “And they’ve only just started dating.”

Beth groans. “How many times do I have to tell you to stop gossiping about my love life?”

“I told you that he liked you,” Auli gloats.

Marikka is clearly fighting laughter as she eats the cookie. “Didn’t you say that you needed some more of that grey wool?” she asks her brother, who nods. “Go get it,” she says.

Auli narrows his eyes at her, but gets up and goes.

“I wanted to thank you, Elizabeth,” Marikka says as soon as Auli is in the rows of yarn.

“Just Beth is fine,” she says on autopilot, before realizing what the other woman has just said. “What are you thanking me for?”

Marikka jerks her head in the direction of Auli. “He’s been a bit…listless since his wife passed. Knitting was helping, but you and your projects have given him a lot to do. He’s teaching the boy next door how to knit, did he tell you?”

Beth nods.

“Whenever he calls, he always talks about you and the shop and his new projects.” Marikka looks a bit teary-eyed. “I’ve been very glad. So thank you.”

Now Beth is feeling a bit misty herself, so she sniffs. “No problem. He’s always wonderful to talk to.”

Marikka laughs. “Just don’t believe his stories. He exaggerates.”

“I leave for a minute,” Auli says, returning with two skeins of grey merino, “and you make each other cry. I can’t take you anywhere!”

Marikka rolls her eyes at her brother. “Oh stop it.”

Beth spends a little while longer talking to the two of them, but eventually she has to head back to work. Marikka promises to come back at least once more before she heads back home.

“Why do I get the feeling that we’ve been adopted,” Mick muses once things quiet down again.

She knows what he’s talking about even without him naming Auli and she laughs. “Because I think we have been.”

Seeing Auli and Marikka together reminds her that she’s still keeping details about Rio from Annie and Ruby. It sticks with her for the rest of the day.

When was the last time she kept anything secret from them?

Beth can’t even remember.

It’s still on her mind the next day too.

_We still on for tonight?_ Ruby texts after breakfast.

_We better be_ , Annie responds, followed by a string of crying emojis.

She bites her lip. She’s not exactly going to reply with _I can’t because I’m trying to figure out whether or not my boyfriend might be a drug dealer._

With a groan, she messages back.

_As long as you bring snacks._

———————————————————————

They’re only ten minutes in TV night when Beth cracks.

“I think the store might be a front for something.”

Ruby and Annie both turn their heads to stare at Beth.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” Ruby leans over to snag the remote and hits pause. “I could have sworn that you said the yarn store was a front.”

“No, that’s what I said.”

Annie picks up the wine bottle and tops up her glass. “Oh, this I gotta hear.”

Beth tells them about Marcel’s visit, the too heavy box, the spreadsheet, and Rio’s sudden work trip.

“It could have a perfectly reasonable explanation!” Annie says, just drinking straight from the bottle at this point.

Ruby raises an eyebrow. “Like what?”

Annie looks like she’s trying to come up with a response, but after they’ve waited for a moment and she still hasn’t responded, Ruby sighs.

“If I say to quit your job and dump him, will you listen?” she asks Beth.

Beth _should_ say yes. But she doesn’t.

“I guess that’s my answer,” Ruby replies, taking the wine bottle from Annie. She lifts it to her lips and then stops. “Did you backwash into this?” she asks Annie.

Annie gasps. “I would never!”

Beth snorts. “I have very real, very traumatizing memories of hot dog in my water bottle.”

“I was like four years old!” Annie protests.

“It was last year,” Beth corrects.

“Okay, okay,” Annie holds up her hand, “we’re judging your life choices right now, not mine.”

Ruby carefully pours wine into her glass, inspecting it. “We can multitask,” she teases.

“Nope.” Annie looks at Beth. “You gotta snoop.”

“Annie!” Ruby nearly shouts.

“It’s either that or ask your boss and or your lover if they’re running a drug business through a craft store.” Annie shakes her head. “I’d check the boxes. You said they’re way too heavy to be yarn. Open one.”

“Don’t open one,” Ruby says. “Do you know what happens to people who open boxes and find out about illegal activities? They die.”

“So she’s supposed to pretend that she doesn’t have her suspicions? Besides, they’re boning. He’ll at least hesitate before ending her.”

“She should get out of there,” Ruby says.

Annie makes a face. “I think you’re forgetting that she’s a Marks. We should do a lot of things but are infamous for our poor decision making! I mean, look who she married the first go around.”

Ruby actually looks considering at that.

“Hey!” Beth feels the need to defend herself. “I am a good decision maker.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Annie toasts her with the bottle she’s just stolen back from Ruby. “Now, you got two choices. You leave it alone or you don’t. And based on the fact that you’re telling us? I’m guessing you’ve already decided that you aren’t leaving it alone.”

Annie’s right, even if Beth won’t admit it. She isn’t going to leave this alone. She just…needs to figure out what to do.

“I just need to confirm it before I make a choice,” Beth says.

Ruby sighs. “What if,” she suggests, “you just ask. Gathering proof might come back and bite you in the ass.”

She’s got a point.

But Beth doesn’t really just want to go up to Rio and ask if he’s running another kind of business through the one she works at. It seems very confrontational and Beth has spent a lifetime of avoiding confrontations.

Snooping it is.

———————————————

Beth doesn’t get the opportunity to do any snooping until the weekend, when she has to head in early to unpack a shipment.

She’s just shifted a box to the work table and is slashing open the tape on the top of a box when she pauses. Frowning, she looks at the weight listed on the box.

50lb.

The box that she just picked up was nowhere near that weight.

She lifts it again just in case maybe she’s making that up.

There’s no way that it’s even thirty pounds.

Inspecting the box a little closer, she notices that the tape she’s about to cut is actually a second layer of clear packing tape that’s been put over top broken tape.

Which, of course, could be perfectly innocent. Plenty of people have to double tape boxes. It’s just that in combination with everything else?

Beth rips the box open.

It’s nothing but skeins of yarn.

The shipping manifest says nothing unusual, but the weight is off again. It says that it’s one of five boxes, each 50 pounds. She goes to the other boxes. There’s only three total, but she lifts them all, just in case. They’re all too light. But when she counts the actual skeins, there’s the exact number that they’d ordered.

Crossing her arms, she sighs.

“What the fuck,” she mutters.

She waits until Mick comes in a few hours later to corner him.

“I think our supplier is ripping us off,” she tells him the second that they’re alone.

His eyes widen. “What?”

She pulls out the shipping manifest and places it on the counter in front of him, jabbing her finger at the number of boxes. “This says that we should have received five boxes, but there’s only three. And there’s no way that any of them were that heavy.”

Mick looks alarmed. “What?” he repeats, a little strangled.

Beth crosses her arms over her chest. “I think they’re scamming you,” she tells him.

He clears his throat. “I’ll look into it,” he says, snatching up the paper from the counter and retreating to the office.

There’s no way that he didn’t know what was happening, Beth concludes. Not that she’s surprised. She can’t imagine a scenario where Rio was using Mick’s business without Mick’s knowledge.

Now it’s just a waiting game.

Rio shows up after lunch.

“C’mon,” he says to Beth just before Mick comes out of the office.

Beth looks at him. “I’m scheduled to work until four.”

“You’re good to go,” Mick tells her.

“C’mon, Elizabeth,” Rio says, jerking his head towards the street where his car is parked.

This was what she’d expected. More or less. Swallowing, she nods and clocks out, before grabbing her things. It has to be a good thing that Rio and Mick don’t stop her, right?

Rio is silent as he drives to his place without asking.

He parks and turns off the car.

“I hear you’ve got some questions,” he says, head leaning back against the rest. When he lazily turns his head to look at her, his expression is closed off.

Beth nods.

“Then come on in,” he invites, unbuckling himself and getting out. He waits for her as she climbs out and Beth isn’t sure if she feels like she’s being herded.

“Want something to drink?” Rio asks when they’re inside.

“No thank you.” Beth winces at how stiff she sounds.

He kicks off his shoes. “Then ask your questions.” He walks away from her, into the living room.

“What do you even do, Rio?” Beth demands as she follows him. “It’s obvious that you don’t just bake for the café. There’s no way that you could afford any of this.”

“If I say I won the lottery?” he replies, taking a seat on his couch.

She scoffs. “Then I’ll say that’s bullshit.”

Rio’s lips curl into a smile. “Yeah, you’re too smart for that,” he says.

“Are you going to tell me the truth?”

“And if I do?” He leans forward, elbows on his thighs. “You gonna decide that hearing it out loud is different from knowing and being able to pretend you don’t know?”

Beth bites the inside of her cheek.

“I’m thinking that you know what I do, Elizabeth,” he says quietly.

She does. She isn’t stupid. She can put together two and two.

“You’re smuggling something. Drugs, I think.”

He nods once.

“Possibly more,” she goes on. “You’ve hurt people.”

He nods again.

“Will you hurt me if I walk out this door?” Beth asks.

Rio tilts his head to the side. “You really gotta ask?”

He won’t.

“Do you want me to stay?”

That throws him for a moment. “Yes,” he answers, firm. “I want you to stay.”

His face is open as he says it.

Beth doesn’t know what to do.

She should turn around and leave, should tell Mick that she’s quitting, should put as much distance between herself and this as she possibly can.

Except she doesn’t want to.

What does it mean that this — Rio admitting these things to her openly when she asks — makes her feel like she’s his equal?

There’s no hidden bank statements, no lying about late meetings.

Now that she’s confronted him, he isn’t scrambling to make excuses or try to convince her that she’s just imagining things, going crazy.

There’s honesty.

And Beth? That’s all she’s really wanted for a long time.

If she were to be honest with herself, she would admit that she’d made this decision days, if not weeks, ago. Has continued to make it every time that she’s stumbled on a piece of the puzzle. Unlike with Dean though, she hasn’t been ignoring it. Not exactly, anyways.

That had been putting her hands over her ears and singing loudly so that nothing would come in. This is more like she’s been studying a sweater, understanding how the stitches have made up the pattern, seeing where a stitch has been dropped or where the tension has changed. None of those things changes how she feels. She just wants to know how it comes together.

She smiles, just a small little thing, fragile for now until she’s sure of their footing. “That’s good,” she says, “because I want to stay.”

He stands and walks over to her, done giving her space to think this over. “You sure?”

Beth nods.

“Elizabeth,” he starts, then sighs and doesn’t go on.

“I don’t know that part of your life,” Beth tells him. “I get the impression that maybe it’s better if I don’t. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to be in the other parts of it.

He smiles, eyes crinkling. “Yeah?” he sounds almost shy as he says it, like he’d been expecting a whole different reaction from her.

“Yeah.”

His hand comes up to stroke the side of her face, then tuck a piece of hair behind her ear. “I can work with that.”

————————————————————

“Well,” Ruby says, “you aren’t dead.”

“Which could mean a few different things,” Annie continues. The two of them have taken the booth opposite Beth at the diner, like they’re carrying out an interrogation.

“What did you find out?” Ruby asks.

Beth shrugs. “Thought you told me not to snoop.”

Annie leans forward. “So you chickened out?”

“I didn’t chicken out of anything!” Beth protests. “I just decided that...I didn’t care.”

They stare at her like she’s grown an extra head.

“You decided that you don’t care,” Ruby repeats back at her.

She nods.

“Whether or not your work is a front for a bunch of criminals, one of whom is your boyfriend,” Ruby goes on. “Are you insane?”

Beth purses her lips. “You didn’t get on Annie this much when she figured out what was going on at Fine and Frugal!”

“Yeah, because she wasn’t dating Boomer,” Ruby retorts.

Annie makes gagging noises. “Not that he didn’t try,” she mutters.

“How many shitty jobs have you had?” Beth asks.

Ruby grimaces. “Too many to count.”

“Were they, legally speaking, above board?”

“More or less,” Ruby admits.

“All Tangled Up in Ewe is the best job that I’ve had,” Beth says. “Not just that, I feel like I’ve built a community and friendships with some of the people who come through. Mick is the best boss that any of us have ever had and he’s been like that since I started, so it’s not even like I’m getting special treatment because of Rio. Honestly? I just don’t care about anything else.”

Annie nods. “You have a point,” she agrees. “Think they’ll hire me?”

“No,” Beth says immediately.

“And what about lover boy?” Ruby asks.

Beth smiles at the reminder of Rio. She’d rolled out of his bed this morning to meet Ruby and Annie, despite his efforts to keep her there.

“That facial expression says it all,” Annie sighs. “She’s got dong fog.”

“I do not have,” Beth lowers her voice to hiss the last bit, “dong fog.”

Annie pats her hand. “It’s ok. It’s the dong fog talking. We’ve all been there.”

Ruby still doesn’t look sure.

“Give him a chance?” Beth says, reaching out for Ruby with the hand that Annie isn’t stroking.

Ruby takes the offered hand. “Fine, but I swear, if I get any sign that he’s putting you in danger, I will tell Stan.”

“He makes me feel safe, Ruby,” Beth tells her. “But not just because he’s there. He makes me feel like I’m safe, just me.” She can see her best friend wavering. “I think I’m in love with him.”

Ruby stares her down and finally sighs. “Alright! I tentatively support this and you, but I reserve the right to change my mind if he turns weird.”

“Of course,” Beth agrees.

“And you’re paying for breakfast.”

“Deal,” Beth laughs.

Annie finally lets go of her hand to wave their server over. “In that case, I’m getting waffles too.”

————————————————————

**Eight months later**

Rio sighs, picking up the skein of yarn and carries it over to the basket. There’s a rule in place for a _reason_. He lifts the lid and stares at the contents of the wicker basket. It’s practically overflowing. He puts the yarn in with the others and lowers the top. Now it won’t close.

He makes a noise of frustration.

“What’s wrong?”

He looks over his shoulder to see Beth come into the kitchen. He meets her eye, then slowly turns his head to look at the basket as she comes around the counter.

“What?” she asks.

“How much yarn can one woman own?” Rio says, pointing.

Beth giggles, going up on her toes to kiss him. “You’ve been to the shop,” she replies, patting his arm. “So you know that the answer is a heck of a lot more than this.”

“Do you even know what you’re making with it?” he asks, giving up on trying to close it, at least for now.

“I’ll have you know that I do.” Beth spins around to walk away from him, but Rio grabs her by the hips and pulls her into him.

“Oh yeah?” he says into her ear.

She hums, leaning back into his chest. “Uh huh.”

“And what’s that?” he asks, hand sliding forward to rest on her stomach.

She tilts her head so that she can meet his eye. “Secret.”

“Secret?”

She nods. He pulls his lower lip into a pout. “You know how I feel about secrets,” he says.

“A little rich,” she teases, “coming from you.”

He’s been honest with Beth about the extent of his business, how he made his money, what he and Mick used to do, what he still does.

To his surprise, she’s even offered an idea or two about ways to launder cash more effectively. He tries to keep her separate from it, but as they’ve settled into this relationship, he’s come to realize that he doesn’t have to.

“Just keep your yarn where it’s supposed to be,” he scolds, “or it’s gonna go missing.”

She gasps. “You wouldn’t!”

“Try me,” Rio says.

“You can’t get rid of my yarn without getting rid of me,” Beth tells him, pulling away, but only far enough that she can turn to face him again.

He cocks his head and fights a grin as something occurs to him. “Because it’s all tangled up in you?”

Beth opens her mouth, then shuts it again. “No,” she says after a beat, holding up her hand.

Laughing, he pulls her close and leans down to kiss her.

“Rio, I’m serious,” she says in between kisses, “no dad jokes.”

“Uh huh,” he agrees, grabbing her ass and hauling her even closer.

“Love you,” she says when the kiss slows.

“Love you too,” Rio replies, setting his forehead against hers.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, as ever, to neveroffanon and medievalraven for beta-ing this. I am now realizing that this is the first thing I'm posting in 2021, which is weird. As always, let me know if there's something that I should tag/warn for or if the warning at the beginning isn't clear enough. I hope that you enjoy(ed) it! And no, I will not apologize for a single pun that I made.


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